Saturday, 3 October 2026

Yury Avvakumov created a model mausoleum of dominoes with Swarovski crystals in 2008

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Yury Avvakumov created a model mausoleum of dominoes with Swarovski crystals in 2008

A mausoleum of black dominoes with Swarovski crystals. An homage to Shchusev.

Yury Avvakumov, 2008.

The domino, a byword for the chain reaction, for unstable, successive collapse, becomes the material of an object emblematic of both a political system and modern history. On the other hand, it is a tomb raised from bones, but gaming bones, part of someone's game of "dice". To all this is added a quite incredible sparkle: the surface of the model is, after all, covered with three and a half thousand rhinestones, and Swarovski is by now an established symbol of consumer culture, of empty, deceptive glitter, of counterfeit jewels.

In its day this mausoleum was one of the brightest exhibits at the monographic exhibition of Alexey Viktorovich Shchusev at the Museum of Decorative Art. It is now being shown at the exhibition "The Russian Incredible" at Zotov.

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