A graduate of the sculpture studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Prof. Jindřich Zeithammel and his current assistant Kryštof Kaplan (*1987) works at the borderline between sculpture and architecture. Although each of his works is completely self-supporting, he likes to intervene in historical and modern spaces with his radical yet sensitive interpretations and create site-specific installations. The most extensive was his realization for the Broumov monastery last year, and the most recent was Big Glass - an installation for the display cases in the Axa arcade in Prague, both in collaboration with curator Iva Mladičová. For the Kabinet T. gallery, he created an experiential installation DOOM, which works with the industrial aesthetics of the site, and through a formal play of paradoxes transforms it into an "other" disturbing space where things are not what they seem to be. 

Kaplan works with a variety of materials - plaster, laminate, concrete, wood, metal and their assemblages. The dominant principle of his work is the tension between stability and dynamism, calm and danger. This ambivalence is the basis for the DOOM project, whose name offers several possibilities of interpretation. In English, DOOM means destruction, doom or judgment; its pronunciation in turn refers to "house", or Dome in the sense of a sacred temple; the same name was given to the cult computer game of the author's adolescence. Kaplan plays with and combines these meanings. Without his work being directly labelled as socially critical, he responds to the pressures of the modern shrines of consumerism, to the ubiquitous assault of advertising citylights, to the sophisticated torture chambers of fitness centres and tanning salons, and points to their hypertrophy.

The basis of most of Kryštof Kaplan's sculptures is a metal construction connected by an ingenious system based on basic physical principles such as pull, leverage or pressure, with forms of an organic nature, which he creates by casting sagging or stuffed textiles - old bed sheets left by his grandmother or hospital sheets. Their apparent dampness and pulpiness lends an animalistic character to the rigid inanimate matter, and creates a deception - what appears to be a soft, pliable duvet is in fact a hard laminate. Contradictory feelings are also aroused by the surface coating of oil, which can evoke leaking bandages or outright monstrous mummies in decomposition. At times the artist allows congealed polyurethane foam to erupt around the precisely crafted metal frames, deepening the contrast between the perfection of the machine and something erratically corporeal. On the other hand, the laminate castings have an acknowledged textile texture, even with ornaments that imprint them with an unexpected subtle beauty. Although overall we can probably find parallels between Kaplan's work and that of Jeanne Tinguely, Ales Vesely or Zbyněk Sekal, in these moments he also meets Joseph Beuys, Christ, Louise Bourgeois or the early works of Clay Oldenburg.

Kaplan's objects expand out of their frames, their expanding matter swelling and becoming threatening in its vehemence. An otherwise seemingly immobile body evokes a sense of distress by the sheer potential of its fall - a fall that must be triggered by human power. A tiny cotter pin is pulled, the taut ropes loosen, the wheels turn, and a destructive mechanism is set in motion, at the end of which a jagged axe arm is ejected, shattering a glass object standing provocatively within its reach. The role of the viewer as a "fellow player in temptation" gives Kaplan's sculptures a theatrical quality that is enhanced in his recent works by the inclusion of elaborate lighting that creates independent dramatic plots. The light built into the installations sometimes responds to sound or, rather paradoxically, to its absence. For example, a sculpture called Solarium, with sound, falls asleep and wakes up in silence, only to take on a life of its own without witnesses. This creates an ominous scenic situation, which Kryštof Kaplan manages to balance to the very tip of expectation - just before it degenerates towards inevitable disaster.