Free with RSVP. If event sells out, there will be a rush line that forms 30 minutes prior to start of event.
On the occasion of the launch of the publication for Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), join us for a conversation between artist Kara Walker and product designer David A.M. Goldberg, moderated by Eungie Joo, curator and head of contemporary art at SFMOMA. Inspired by a wide range of sources, from antique dolls to Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, Walker’s garden of automatons set amidst an energy field of gleaming black obsidian considers the memorialization of trauma, the objectives of technology, and the possibilities of transforming the negative energies that plague contemporary society.
This new publication presents working drawings and paintings, photographs of Walker’s creative process with collaborators, and detailed images of the final installation at SFMOMA. Also included are an illuminating text by the artist, an essay by Goldberg, a selection of fashion designer Gary Graham’s notebook pages, an excerpt from Donna Haraway’s influential essay “A Cyborg Manifesto,” experimental short fiction by writer Damani McNeil, and a conversation between Walker and Joo.
Kara Walker is renowned for her bold examinations of the dynamics of power and the exploitation of race and sexuality through her profound work that has appeared in exhibitions around the world. In addition to her commission for SFMOMA, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) (2024), Walker has created monumental sculptures including A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby (2014) for the former Domino Sugar refinery in Brooklyn, and Fons Americanus (2019) for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Walker’s work can be found in numerous museums and public collections, including The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Tate Gallery, London; the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI), Rome; and Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt. She lives and works in New York.
Dr. David A.M. Goldberg is a Black San Franciscan who came of age in the era of the Commodore 64, 1200 baud online culture, and the birth of Hip Hop. He uses a lifelong interest in art, culture, and technology to transform the means by which people access, assess, and organize knowledge. Goldberg’s writing and research maps intersections of art, race, technology, and history with a focus on generative AI, collective intelligence, and digital epistemologies. Professionally, he is a lead product designer and strategist of interactive content that is grounded in and informed by the authentic experiences and desires of underrepresented folks. He is a trained programmer, a “first wave” (1998–2001) Afrofuturist, and a co-founder of betalounge.com (one of the first music streaming platforms). He holds degrees in Computer Systems Engineering (Howard University), Visual Criticism (California College of the Arts), and a PhD in American Studies (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa).
Eungie Joo is curator and head of contemporary art at SFMOMA. She was previously Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs at the New Museum and founding director and curator of the Gallery at the Roy and Edna Disney / CalArts Theater (REDCAT). Joo has published essays on the practices of Mark Bradford, Margaret Kilgallen, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Cinthia Marcelle, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Adrián Villar Rojas, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, among others. She has served as a curatorial advisor to numerous biennial and triennial exhibitions; artistic director of the 5th Anyang Public Art Project / APAP 5 (2016); curator of Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible (2015); curator of the 2012 New Museum Generational Triennial: The Ungovernables; and commissioner of the Korean Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, where she presented Condensation: Haegue Yang (2009). Joo earned her PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.