Historical experiences, especially at the end of the 20th century, and the streams of verbal and visual information that span our world and decrease its size, make the words "sacrifice" and "offerings" sound tragic and ominous. This especially the case where news about events in which human life is sacrificed are relayed indiscriminately by modern-day electronic media in the indifferent comfort of postindustrial society. The sacrifice of human life is almost always death lacking an inner meaning.

Everyday life and the passing of time have obscured the fact that the word "sacrifice" is primarily oriented towards communication, dialogue with another person or even with God. Its basis involves a link with ritualised communication, a ceremonial expression in which something is promised or vowed, or in which something is determined for a particular aim. In this sense, then, the sacrifice or offering is the binding of a relationship and its form as bloody human sacrifice is exceptional, occurring only in the hour of greatest need. A sacrifice or offering protects and cleanses the entire society that is present at the moment , giving it back a sacred dimension and thus revealing meaning and providing strength.

For his Prague exhibition, Pavel Kraus has prepared a large and complex installation entitled "Sex Death Offerings". I think that one of the fundamental features of this realisation is the way it fathoms deeper than the current little-considered meaning of the word "offering", reaching its possible original meanings.

Kraus' "archeological site" has a very special composition for which the materials that he has used are fundamental. The most essential and visible are lead and beeswax. The third material is wood, which creates the core of the installation's individual components, latently live beings that Kraus calls "innocents". The use of lead and wax is nothing new in Kraus' work; in Prague, for example, he used lead in his installation "Remains of the Future". In the case of his "Sex Death Offerings" it is a remarkable coincidence that the ancient material used so strikingly here was often used in ancient times for casting objects, usually small sculptured images, that were offered to the gods. These sculptures bore the inscription "Ex voto", meaning "in pursuance of vow", gratitude that was, as part of a dialogue, ceremonially expressed to the gods. It was an offering which increased divine power and also represented a vow fulfilled.

Beeswax forms the bulk of Kraus' installation. It is a material whose appearance in his art might seem coincidental, like his tale from country life in Vermont, where he often retreats to focus fully on his work. It is more the case, however, that Kraus, fascinated by his natural material, fully realised its artistic, or rather painterly, qualities. This fact is borne out by a series of realisations preceding "Sex Death Offerings" whose almost picture-like surfaces are based on these qualities. Left to the greatest extent in its natural state, like wax becomes in several of these realisations a kind of absolute encaustic without pigment or the touch of a paintbrush.

Kraus' "innocents" also employ this quality of beeswax, its plasticity and the way it yields easily to his aims. Kraus' "innocents", his "offerings" are not vowed sacrifices meant for death; instead, they are meant for life, life that they conceal within themselves. This is their vow, one that is made in an unostentatious way and only made to the person who feels their true presence. Their life is confirmed not only by the live material of nature - wood and beeswax - but also by the scent that envelops them, and by the mysterious music that accompanies them. Yet another key feature confirms their life, one hidden to the glances of passers-by: that of movement. The individual objects move each day, changing their positions and finding different places in this society. Alhtought their movement and the change of situation might go unnoticed by inattentive visitors, it is carefully observed and recorded daily in a book of lead.

It is difficult within the space of a brief text to pick out all the consequences of Pavel Kraus' latest realisation, "Sex Death Offerings"; instead, one can only hint at a few of them. "Sex Death Offerings" undoubtedly represents the most complex work of his current stage, which is primarily focused on spatial forms. In the open climate of multicultural America which enables one to avoid successive waves of momentary fashions, Kraus appears to be gaining an ever clearer view of freedom, roots and fundamental bonds.