kaucyila brooke

In her Un-Entitled Certificate with Unofficial Seal (2012), Kaucyila Brooke (in collaboration with Gala Porras­Kim) similarly subverts an existing institution, in this case that of marriage defined as a union between a man and a woman. The work featured in this exhibition is the latest addition to Brooke's ongoing Tit for Twat project (1992-present), a revisionist account of the Biblical creation story that illustrates the story of Madam and Eve in the form of almost thirty photomontages organized into a kind of photo-novella. Brooke's lesbian protagonists are of African and European origin and their voluptuous nude bodies feature prominently throughout the photomontage panels. Madam and Eve appear in various settings amidst cutouts of celebrity talk show hosts including Oprah, Maury Povich and Geraldo Rivera, who address them in the form of speech bubbles. Equipped with microphones, the hosts pose a series of uncharacteristically profound questions about the nature of truth and identity formation and the hierarchies inherent in acts of naming and classification to the first women in Brooke's origin story. In this way the artist reveals the extent to which the story of creation shapes and sets into motion ideologies that govern every aspect of cultural life, including our understanding of nature and the "natural." Brooke elaborates this key concern in a later chapter of Tit for Twat in which Madam and Eve visit a series of wildernesses and man-made landscapes both historical and contemporary that betray the worldviews of their particular historical moment.

The most recent addition to Brooke's revisionist creation story featuring Madam and Eve takes the form of a lavish mock marriage certificate and wax seal. The handwritten document with its decorative flourishes is clothbound between covers lined in ornamental endpapers and connected by a gold-colored ribbon to a large circular red wax seal. Un-Entitled Certificate with Unofficial Seal is loosely modeled on the marriage certificate and seal of one of the grand dukes of Baden, housed today at the General State Archives in Karlsruhe, Germany. The language and imagery of Brooke's certificate and seal, however, detract significantly from the "original" to authorize the dissolution of the Biblical creation story of Adam and Eve and the attendant hierarchies it has set into place, which are so culturally entrenched that they exert their dominance almost undetected. The first page of Un-Entitled Certificate proclaims its lack of legitimacy: "It is by no special authority and without making a command that we Desire and Encourage our beloved characters / Madam and Eve / to follow the narrative to its multiple points of origin." The lengthier text on the second page outlines the liberties that the artist has undertaken in Tit for Twat as a whole. From the garden setting of Brooke's alternative creation myth, "the heirs of the heirs of all current and future genders and species" shall among other rights, inherit "all domains and the right to name and rename them at will," the freedom to "explore and explode" their own narrative, as well as the "ability to enhance the legacy of Madam and Eve through the epic of Tit for Twat." The wax seal bears images of Madam and Eve as well as multiple references to the artist's own identity as the author and effective authenticator of Tit for Twat. The Latin inscription along the perimeter delineates the meaning of Brooke's first and last name, which translates as "Woman of Peace and Divine Love flowing like a serene brook." At the center of the seal is a heraldic shield bearing imagery related to Brooke's home state of Oregon. To either side we find the shield's protectorates, Madam and Eve, whose lower bodies and tattoos refer to the artist's Chinese and western zodiac signs. Flags on either side refer to Brooke's occupation as a photographer and her youth as a Camp Fire Girl, while iconography from the artist's past projects are featured along the lower register. In the upper register, the apotropaic figure of Shellana Gig stands resolutely on top of the globe, unabashedly revealing her genitalia and warding off evil. The artist's fabricated marriage certificate and seal evoke the authority of the traditional marriage contract in order to reveal its limitations by hyperbolically exceeding them. In Tit for Twat and Un-Entitled Certificate with Unofficial Seal in particular, Brooke demonstrates that re-narrating the Biblical creation story and refusing the presumed heterosexuality of its protagonists entails a comprehensive upheaval of our cultural values and institutions.