Room 1

Craig Bruns

CLOUD, SILENCE, PURITY

EXHIBITION /
SEPTEMBER 8 TO OCTOBER 2, 1994

For Craig Bruns. communal worship and individual belief exist in a complicated relationship, one in which the differences (among people, among adherents of various faiths) struggle against the harmonious vision each religious system proposes to us. In his installation, “Cloud, Silence, Purity”, elements of Judaism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Nahua and Mayan beliefs have been brought together into a setting of prayer and contemplation. The innocence of the title, and the wholesomeness of the fabric and other materials, contrast with Bruns’ mournful invitation to contemplate illness, death and loss. As we enter this unusual sacral space, and read from the artist’s “Book of Uncommon Prayer”, perhaps we will come to reconcile difference, change and the unknown in ourselves with expressions of belief which people like us have maintained for centuries.