Sergey Alexandrovich Yakunin

National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany
Private collections in France, Germany, England, and Russia.

1989-92 Permanent exhibition of the "Moscow Collection" gallery (books, objects). Hermitage Garden, Moscow.
1991 "Agasfer". Palace of Youth, Moscow.
1992 "Word-Image". All-Russian A.S. Pushkin Apartment Museum, St. Petersburg.
1993 Design of Nikita Mikhaylovsky's memorial exhibition. "Delta" Gallery, St. Petersburg.
International seminar of graphic artists. Wernigerode, Germany.
"Livres d`artistes russes et sovietiques: 1910–1993". Espace Vezere, Uzerche, France.
"Avant-garde and Tradition. Books of Russian Artists of the 20th Century". Russian State Library, Moscow.
1994 "International Book Fair". Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
"Bucher als Narkotika". Galerie forum book art H.S.Bartkowiak, Hamburg, Germany.
"Paper Theatre-2". Anna Akhmatova House Museum, St. Petersburg.
"Artists' Books". Museum of Fine Arts, Yekaterinburg.
1995 "Closing of Theatre Season 1994", Tverskaya 28, Moscow.
"Kharms-Festival". Anna Akhmatova Museum at the Fountain House, St. Petersburg.
"Configura 2. Dialog der Kulturen". Erfurt, Germany.
"The Book Garden. Contemporary Russian Artists Books". Off-Centre Gallery, Bristol; The John Rylands University Library, Manchester; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea; Aberystwyth Arts Centre; Stormont Rooms, Rye (1996), UK.
1996 "Back to Photography" (annual exhibition of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow) as part of the Moscow Forum of Artistic Initiatives. Small Manege, Moscow (catalogue).
1997 "Paper Theatre – III". Anna Akhmatova House Museum, St. Petersburg.
"Three Versions of Alitka's Life" (with Perevezentsev). "Velta" Gallery, Moscow.
1997 "Hymn to the Lost Symbol". Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), Moscow.
THEATRE PRODUCTIONS
1987 R. Ottojadt "Madame Margarita", director V. Mirzoev, STD Creative Workshops
1988 P. Claudel "Midday Partition", director V. Mirzoev, STD Creative Workshops
1989 T. Barker "Possibilities", director V. Mirzoev (with P. Kaplevich), STD Creative Workshops
1990 A. Vertinskaya "Mirages", director V. Makeev (with P. Kaplevich), Variety Theatre
1992 V. Martynov "Attainment of Absolutely Beautiful Sound", Mark Pekarsky Sound Theatre
1994 A. Burykin "Bashmachkin", director I. Zolotovitsky

No information available.

Everything Sergey Yakunin creates fits perfectly into several fundamentally Russian mythologems. Firstly, into the context of the myth of the craftsman who shod a flea, and secondly, into the context of Russian totality, which accompanies projects of world-building. Nominally a theatre artist, in fact, he is engaged in a kind of holistic development of the environment; his objects—whether it is the scenography for the play "Bashmachkin", the "Shakespeare Room" project, the composition "Childhood Garden", the cycle of Kharms' "moving books" or the series of flying angels—always tend to expand and assemble into a holistic spatial model. Individually, these are "kunststücke" or toys, more often kinetic than static, yet alike in resembling a sprawling "music box town", a mechanical and handmade marvel. Their "commercial appearance" does not concern the artist at all—what matters is that the construction, built from readily available materials, "works", i.e., moves, makes sounds, etc.; in the deliberate roughness of execution and immersion in the material, the conceptuality of ideas seems to dissolve. Moreover, sometimes the task itself includes the self-destruction of the object—"The Childhood Garden" is meant to fly apart and be destroyed. With regard to his artistic image, Sergey Yakunin fits the typology of the "craftsman"—and this role is extremely organic and appealing.
(G. Elshevskaya)