If Beranek's ritualised archeology is focused on symbolically embodying the timeless processes of habitation, then Pavel Kraus, the counterpoint participant in this show, leads the viewer into a world filled with indeterminably archaic symbols suggestive of the timeless processes of birth, desire, procreation and death. Kraus, a Czech-born contemporary of the core members of the 12/15 group who has lived almost thirty years in the United States, prepared two site-specific installations for the Skidmore stage of the show: Books of the Keeper/Chapel for the indoor space, and Excavation/Archeology. In these works, Kraus follows on from his recent exhibition shown at the Manes Gallery, Prague, in March 1999, creating a monument that serves as an altar around which an unexplained ceremony of movement takes place.

As with the fertile material symbolism of his Manes installation, with its organic beeswax the residue of life and the inorganic lead a forbidding vessel of death, his choice of white marble for the Skidmore installation carries with it a rich spectrum of possible allusions. Perhaps the first connection to spring to mind is that of Greek marble: the famous Pentelic marble quarried by the ancient Greeks and used for the Parthenon and the Elgin marbles, and also the coarser-grained Parian marble used for the celebrated Mausoleum, the tomb of King Mausolos of Caria. Then, of course, the Carrara marble of ancient Rome used for the Pantheon and Trajan's column. These references bring with them a series of indefinable but deeply resonant notions of man's transcending life and death. The outdoor piece is accompanied by an object-chronicle located indoors which serves to record the erratic white marble pieces, a kind of holy book containing the enigmatic wisdom of forces beyond our comprehension. Kraus does not "excavate" to liberate truths sealed in the past; his archeological progeny emerges out of the invisible, possibly even more complex, strata of the present day - truly the remains of the future.

Site-specific installation "BOOKS OF THE KEEPER", 1999/148"x100"x54"

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