A personal exhibition is the most elegant way to celebrate an architect's anniversary. At the same time a holiday and a report on the work done. The new idea of Yuri Avvakumov, however, happily avoids even a hint of heavy cataloging, because it is very chamber and is entirely devoted to games. This is not surprising - last year a larger retrospective took place, and on the other hand, a month ago, one of Avvakumov's works received the Ludwig Giese Prize from the LETTER Foundation, the main and only award presented at the 10th Triennial of Sculpture in Fellbach. The award was given to the Fort Asperen object, a house of cards depicting a real Dutch fortress of the same name. Its fragile design can fold and unfold due to the fact that all cards are strung on one thread.
The choice of a prestigious international exhibition prompted the famous "paper architect" to realize a long-standing idea - thus the audience received a retrospective of the "game genre" in Avvakumov's work - a small and ephemeral, but no less fascinating exhibition of GAMES, which combines several different types of objects, relevant to the author and not previously gathered together.
There are bronze “towns” here that best fit the definition of sculpture due to their weight and material. A kind of modern art's answer to the Greek boy playing the pile. Gorodki is a relatively recent topic for Avvakumov, it first appeared in 1992 in the form of a drawing-project; then a few years ago a huge metal structure arose on the "Art-Klyazma", in all respects exceeding the structure accessible for destruction with a bat, from this it is invulnerable and continues to decorate the beach of the Pirogovo resort to this day. Now the towns are forming a developed exposition plot, which has a beginning - a drawing with a project, the middle, where four depicted objects are materialized, assembled from bronze cylinders into town figures, and the end is a video with a man in a tracksuit playing in towns. It turns out a full cycle - from concept to action.
The author himself admits that cinema reveals the paradox of the traditional Russian game, in which someone first long and carefully puts together an ingenious and unreliable structure, adjusts the parts, achieves perfection, and then in one fell swoop breaks what he has just conjured, holding his breath. In general, the "game" theme of Yuri Avvakumov has a leitmotif and it is definitely associated with the destruction and restoration of something very fragile. He chooses games where, according to the plot, you must first carefully build, and then break in one fell swoop. And - either he seeks to overcome this injustice, or he simply reflects on the topic.
Dynamic houses of cards are undoubtedly in the lead at the exhibition. Yuri Avvakumov invented them for the "Doll's House" competition, which was held in 1982 by the British Union of Architects RIBA. Then the 26-year-old architect combined the well-known game of cards with the idea formulated in the kinetic object "Self-Erecting House" by Vyacheslav Koleichuk, who was listed as a consultant for the project sent to the exhibition. Koleichuk's “House” in 1969 was a fantastic utopia on the theme of construction in the Far North - upon being brought to the site, it had to instantly unfold in full growth. It was not designed for reality at all, but there were notes of sixties pathos in it. The unfolding was explosive - this feature was borrowed by Yuri Avvakumov. Applying it to a uniquely toy and therefore "doll" material - playing cards. The first house sent to England was held on elastic bands and flew out of its box, according to the author's own admission, "like a devil out of a snuffbox." There was a lot of dynamics in this, but such an object is difficult to expose, because after it has turned around once, only the author can fold it back to demonstrate the effect a second time.
Therefore, Yuri Avvakumov finalized the idea by replacing the rubber bands with threads. The objects have lost some of their explosive energy, having instead acquired a bit of melancholic lyricism and, most importantly, they have become easily manageable, speaking in a modern way, interactive. Any viewer can fold and unfold such a structure by pulling the string or twisting the handle. The improved invention has given rise to a number of objects of various devices - one of which has recently received an award in Germany. Several of his sisters are shown at the Moscow jubilee exhibition: this is a skyscraper tower, the letter "H" from cards with a gilded edge - made by order of Hermes, a bashful red cabin with a twisting lever like in a well, and an intricate "Russian house" made of black-background "Palekh" pictures …
Thus, Yuri Avvakumov invites his viewers to play, but not in the way everyone is used to. It turns out a game on the theme of a game, plus a game with the meanings of what is drawn on the cards - the games are folded into the author's favorite matryoshka, layered and mixed with intricate seriousness. There are no direct allusions to gambling at all - but there is, perhaps, a memory of the children's house of cards, glorified in the painting by Zinaida Serebryakova. If you look from this side, it is also obvious that there is a shift and mixing of meanings: in an ordinary game, the structure is short-lived and the more vulnerable the more complex it is. This is the image of an elusive dream - if you build it, touch it, it will fall. Stringing his cards on a thread, Avvakumov facilitates the work of restoration, improves the dream, removing impracticability from it. Needless to say, this is the main theme of the utopia of the Russian avant-garde - to invent so that happiness is reliable, achievable and manageable. So that you can reach the sky with oars, and an electric lamp illuminated the way to the future. Yuri Avvakumov, a famous connoisseur and collector of this utopia, abstracts its meaning and puts it into a deliberately light form - one where it can successfully exist. Thus giving new life to the avant-garde utopia. After all, what is the Russian avant-garde if not an attempt to keep the house of cards intact?
