Kara Walker Is No One’s Robot Kara Walker Is No One’s Robot
The New York Times
At SFMOMA, the artist enacts a parable about trauma and healing in Black life — and makes her first foray into robotics. “I went down a little sci-fi rabbit hole the last couple years working on this piece.”
The raised right arm of a 7-foot-tall Black automaton in a somber Victorian dress came swinging down toward an approaching visitor, who had unknowingly triggered a motion sensor.
“Oh, watch your head!” the artist Kara Walker called out. She was standing just outside the wingspan of her creation, called Fortuna, as it sputtered to life in a cavernous hangar at the Brooklyn Navy Yard this spring. The robot, named for a prophetess, began to spit out printed fortunes from its mouth; they fluttered to the floor for the audience to contemplate.
“The paradox of Being Black is the condition of Not-being,” one read.
“Your last shred of dignity is often your best.”
“Loss is a heady thing our hearts cannot comprehend.”
Fortuna is one of eight robots Walker produced in a groundbreaking collaboration merging art and technology for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The kinetic ensemble begins its marathon performance on July 1 in the museum’s free, first-floor gallery and runs for almost two years.
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