Baccara is the collaboration between Madeleine Bailey and Helen Maurene Cooper. Drawing on mythologies of romance and stories of mistaken identity, our name channels the image of the Black Rose as depicted through the Harlequin romance novel "Knights of the Black Rose." While the Black Rose is not found in nature, botanists have manipulated the genetics of several varieties of roses, creating a hybrid black rose that actually appears to be a deep red or purple. Appealingly, Baccarra is also the name of a successful female Spanish musical duo whose hits melded disco, pop, and elements of Spanish folk music in the 1970's. With particular affection for "Yes Sir, I can Boogie" and "Sorry, I'm a Lady," we took the name of the genetically modified flower and the campy folk disco band and made it our own: as Baccarra, we are a Chicago based female duo that produces photographs and works on paper as well as performance and narrative based videos embracing artifice and the absurd through childhood games and sexual parody.
baccara
