Always questioning political and social norms, Ed and Nancy Kienholz took on the American judicial system with their 1987 work The Caddy Court.

As a scathing indictment of the Supreme Court, the piece is a large-scale assemblage made from a 1966 Dodge van sandwiched between the front and back ends of a 1978 Cadillac. The Caddy Court is portable just like the real Supreme Court, which traveled from state to state as a circuit court in its early days. The Cadillac’s white exterior mockingly imitates the grand white marble of the Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. Checkerboard motifs run along its sides like a taxi cab, but the square pattern contains portraits of every appointed chief justice since 1790 – perhaps alluding to the institution’s checkered past, or the repetition of individuals (mainly old white men) chosen to serve on “The Highest Court in the Land.”

A black curtain hangs from a replica of the Supreme Court’s pediment, which sits atop the car’s opened door. Peering beyond the drapes, the viewer is confronted with a Last Supper-type scene of nine figures seated along the far end of a table. 

Comprised of skeletons and taxidermy animals posed in human form and donned in judicial robes, they are a gross representation of the American Supreme Court justices. Only one woman is portrayed. Distinguished by her high heels, she is relegated to the side of the scene as secondary to that of her male counterparts. 

The works calls to question the value of an institution whose representatives are increasingly old and out of touch. Here the Kienholzes offer a perspective that challenges the prestige of the Court as symbols of wisdom and pride, but rather of death and decay. 

See this work by the Kienholzes and more in the exhibition Five Car Stud, now in its final weekend at the Fondazione Prada in Milan, Italy. 

IMAGES: Edward & Nancy Reddin Kienholz, The Caddy Court, 1986 - 87, mixed media assemblage