Two Bites of the Apple
I: Scrub That
Braunschweig, the artist, uses, employs, must have, in essential requirement, to make his art, a hardware shop scrubbing brush of time-immemorial unchanging weight and shape, hard bristles set in a vaguely figure-eight wooden base or grip, as used by his mother, as probably yours, to scrub the linoleum in the kitchen, bathroom, toilet (only it was called the lavatory then), outside too, the concrete, the steps, and his scrubbings, or marks, as the learned cognoscenti love to pronounce, whether on bounce of Belgian linen, the rasp of rough-grained canvas, the slick anonymity of smooth-faced board or card, whichever or whatever to hand, likewise of meditated moment or simply seized, algebraic wisdom, rush of blood, to begin, let’s say, bristle tips of dipped no-colour watered black, in tenderest touch, a stipple of spots, a scribble of briefest braille, that first sprinkling of lightest rain upon placid lake’s waiting face, perhaps the crease of passing breeze…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins