Stock, 1991, engraved ladles, dissolved stock cubes (replenished every three days), steel, wire, dimensions variable.

“In a hanging piece entitled Stock, 1991, four large steel ladles filled with the redolent broths made from dissolved vegetable, beef, chicken, and fish stock cubes, were engraved with single words: "comatose," "strapping," "cowardly," and "suspicious." Here, Brooks immerses himself equally in cliché and in truth, or at least in as much truth as a stock cube can accommodate. Adrift in indeterminate seas of ambiguity and inconsistency, evidence and the truth it supports rest only in the mind of the beholder.”

Excerpt from review of solo exhibition at Abel Joseph Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, James Yood, Artforum, April 1991 (Download article here)