ÜGLY
The Broom, full view laid flat on a white background: the long blackened branch winds from the knotty end at left to the bundle of black bristles bound with jute twine at right, work by Robert Bibeau

The Broom

The poorest object in the house, stood up as sculpture: a whole branch kept in its natural curve, ending on one side in a knot of raw wood, on the other in a dark bundle of fibres bound with jute, close to two metres in all. The broom trails a long history of images, the witch's instrument, a tool of threshold rites; nothing here decides between those readings. The object keeps its legible function, and it is that retained usefulness that makes it unsettling once out of the kitchen. It is a broom; displacement alone makes it strange.

The Broom, close view of the knotty end of the handle on its rust-coloured side: lumpy wood in brown and rust tones, turning black toward the handle, against a pale grey background
The Broom, detail of the head on a white background: the jute twine, wound in many turns, binds the black bristles to the blackened handle; the stiff fibres fan out to the right
The Broom, close-up of the jute binding and the bristles: stiff, glossy black strands, a few paler ones among them, lying side by side under the beige twine, the whole resting on a wooden board
The Broom, where the binding meets the handle: the ends of the bristles show in a ring between the jute wrapping and the blackened, crackled wood of the handle, above a paved ground
The Broom, the end of the handle seen from above: the blackened, rough-surfaced wood ends in a knot in brown and black tones, the branch resting on a wooden table with grass and fallen leaves beyond
Video

In the video, the broom is held by a carved female figure. That figure is a separate work, “The Priestess”, shown below.

The PriestessRelated workThe Priestess