Naomi Yang and Damon Krukowski: Fortune

Fortune, a 30-minute silent film directed by musician Naomi Yang (formerly of Galaxie 500), with original soundtrack performed by her band Damon & Naomi.

In the film, Norman’s father was a society portrait painter. After his father’s death, Norman faces the burden of inheriting his father’s life’s work. In the process of coming to terms with this legacy, he struggles with conflicting feelings about a man who was a gifted artist, but a difficult and unsupportive parent. Fortune exposes the emotional journey Norman experiences as he reconnects with his own artistic nature, something that was not possible while his father was alive—finally emerging from his father’s shadow, and the shadow of grief.

Fortune features actors Norman von Holtzendorff and Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez and and was edited in collaboration between Naomi Yang and acclaimed experimental filmmaker and editor Nathaniel Dorsky.

Free and open to the public, this event takes place on Level 1 of the Carpenter Center. 

The U.S. premiere of Fortune is presented by the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts and the Harvard Film Archive. 

Damon & Naomi

Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang started playing music together as the rhythm section, co-songwriters, and sometime singers in Galaxie 500. When that band ended, they continued as a duo, first recording for Shimmy Disc and then on a series of albums for Sub Pop Records. In 2005, they formed their own label (20/20/20) and have since released three further Damon & Naomi albums: The Earth Is Blue, Within These Walls, and False Beats and True Hearts—alongside reissues of their own and the Galaxie 500 back catalogue. Damon & Naomi and Galaxie 500's music has been used as soundtrack in films including The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Greenberg; and on television shows including The Sopranos, and The Ghost Whisperer.

In addition to their work as musicians, Krukowski and Yang are the publishers of Exact Change, a small press dedicated to avant-garde literature and artists’ writings. Individually, Krukowski is a writer (books, blog, articles for Artforum, Frieze and others), and Yang is a visual artist (photography, video, and graphic design). Her design of a centenary LP box set for the John Cage Trust was nominated for a Grammy, and her music videos for artists such as Julia Holter, Meg Baird, and Neutral Milk Hotel are widely available online.

Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang are based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Interstitial

Fortune is part of The Interstitial, a new CCVA program that takes advantage of the time and physical space between exhibitions. The Interstitial hosts performances, installations and other time-based events that transpire over the course of an evening or several days.