Stair Ladder Barricade, 1989-1993
Screenprint, 22" x 30"
Yuri Avvakumov was born in Tiraspol, Moldova (then a part of the USSR), in 1957. He graduated from the Moscow Architecture Institute in 1981. Avvakumov is a sculptor, a printmaker, and a practicing architect with his own firm, AGITARACH Studio, in Moscow. His work has been exhibited at the State Museums of Moscow and of St. Petersburg, the Palazzo dell'Arte, Milan, and the Fondation pour l'Architecture, Brussels. He has been influenced by the Russian avant-garde artists of the 1920s such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Ljubov Popova, and Konstantin Melnikov. Ladders and exposed stairwells are recurring themes in both his art and his architectural designs. For Avvakumov, ladders are carriers of meaning, becoming temporary monuments, symbols of construction and progress, or barricades.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.