In the world of contemporary art, the question of authenticity is becoming more vital with each passing year. Works of contemporary sculpture, experimental photography, or interdisciplinary practice rarely remain in one place. They circulate through collections, resurface in exhibitions, and at times reach the international auction market. For collectors, curators, and scholars, reliable provenance and clear authorship are essential. Without them, the cultural and personal value of a work can fade. With them, an artwork retains both its story and its rightful place in the Berlin art scene and beyond.

As a sculptor and interdisciplinary artist working for over two decades, I have seen how creative concepts spread across borders and platforms. At times, my own ideas have been adopted too closely by epigones. Influence and inspiration are natural parts of culture, but originality deserves to be protected. For this reason, I am now offering certificates of authenticity for my earlier works. This step supports collectors who have invested in my journey while ensuring that each piece is recognized as part of a lasting artistic legacy.

Why a Certificate of Authenticity Matters

A certificate of authenticity is not just a piece of documentation. It is a signed and dated confirmation that directly connects a work to its creator. In practical terms, it gives collectors confidence, allows curators to include works in institutional exhibitions, and helps auction houses verify authorship for future sales. In a private collection, it provides heirs with a clear record of ownership and secures value for generations.

Beyond its role in the market, a certificate also preserves cultural memory. Every sculpture, drawing, or immersive photographic piece is a message to the future. Proper attribution ensures that this message will not be lost or confused. Without such confirmation, a work may risk slipping into anonymity. With it, the piece becomes a traceable part of a broader narrative, allowing it to be studied, exhibited, and appreciated as a contribution to contemporary art history.

To thank those who have supported my work, I am offering the first ten certificates of authenticity without charge, apart from shipping costs. Each will be printed on archival-quality paper, signed, and dated personally by me.

How to Request a Certificate

Collectors of my works are warmly invited to contact me. The process is straightforward:

1. Make a clear photograph of the artwork you own
   
2. Get in touch via contact form
3. After verification, a printed certificate will be prepared and mailed directly.

This process not only strengthens the value of each individual work but also ensures that my body of work remains coherent and protected against misattribution. It contributes to the larger effort of art authentication and builds a reliable foundation for future research, exhibitions, and sales.

If you own one of my sculptures or photo-theater pieces and would like to secure its place within my artistic archive, please get in touch through the contact form or email provided. Together we can preserve the authenticity of these works, protect their provenance, and maintain a legacy that will remain visible in the history of contemporary art.

The exhibition The Real Magic of Magical Realism in Berlin has closed and entered the city’s shared cultural memory. It was the second exhibition to revisit the summer 2024 event, a performance never widely announced and witnessed only by several dozen participants and a few accidental passersby in the Rose Garden. Precisely because of this hidden character, its reappearances in exhibition form gain weight: they open a work once confined to a fleeting circle of witnesses into broader circulation. The first exhibition reflected on memory itself, on the fragile passage between collective remembrance and individual interpretation. The second created a bridge through Roman Ekimov’s photographic series and the improvisational drawings of Maya Ashinyants, extending the event into new artistic forms.

At the core stands the collective performance Die Traumträger (The Dream Keepers). I call it an immersive visualisation, for it is neither a closed composition nor a scripted theatre piece. I design the conditions, the symbols, and the spatial dramaturgy, but once the work begins the flow is no longer mine alone. Every participant, deliberate or incidental, adds gestures and perceptions that alter its course. The performance becomes a shared creation, unpredictable in detail yet coherent in spirit. On that hot summer evening in 2024 this openness gave rise to the vision of a white dragon appearing at sunset among the roses, a vision that dissolved as quickly as it emerged.

Ekimov’s photographs preserve this apparition while translating it into another register. They are not neutral records but acts of interpretation, citations of my work that acknowledge their source and assert their own presence. For any artist, such citation matters deeply. It inscribes a work into an aesthetic dialogue, amplifies its resonance, and situates it within a network of references that critics and curators read as markers of artistic seriousness. Ashinyants extends this dialogue further with her graphic improvisations. Through her drawings, the dragon shifts again, moving from memory into transformation, becoming less an image of the past than a figure of continuing invention.

This sequence of performance, photographic citation, and graphic improvisation shows how even a nearly hidden event can take root in cultural life. The first exhibition reflected on how memory oscillates between the collective and the personal. The second added the dimension of artistic dialogue across media. Together they reveal that the significance of an artwork does not depend on publicity but on its capacity to generate responses, to be remembered and reimagined beyond its immediate audience.

For me as the author, this process confirms that the vitality of a performance lies not in its singular occurrence but in its afterlives, in the ways it is cited, transformed, and shared across time. The Real Magic of Magical Realism offered one such afterlife, turning an intimate summer apparition into part of a broader cultural conversation. In this lies the true magic: that a vision once confined to a few witnesses can continue to unfold in new forms, long after the dragon has vanished into the dusk.

The store section on this website is reserved exclusively for artists Patreon supporters. By joining, you not only support my art but also gain private access to artworks, limited editions, and behind-the-scenes creations that are not available anywhere else. You are welcome! patreon.com/yalonetski

Bosch’s Garden is a feverish theatre of visions: absurd, erotic, grotesque. Yet beneath the delirium lie deeper ideas. Some of his scenes feel almost philosophical, even when they come wrapped in feathers, fruit, and flesh.

As a visual artist, I often begin with form and color, following intuition before meaning arrives. This ceramic scene, drawn from the central panel of Bosch’s triptych, might at first seem to echo familiar themes: sensuality, temptation, the world poised between sin and flood, a lush and surreal anti-Eden.

But once it took shape in three dimensions, something unexpected appeared. A figure perched on the back of a great bird. Pale, bare, wide-eyed. Watching. With hands on his head, he seems overcome, not with ecstasy, but with thought. In a world where everyone else is caught in acts of lust or folly, he appears set apart.

I could not help but think of Max Stirner.

A thinker most people overlook, one whom the great philosophers rarely dare to name. His book Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, written three centuries after Bosch, stands among the most radical rejections of abstraction in modern thought. Stirner gazes into the abyss and refuses to look away.

It is telling that even those most disturbed by his ideas could not bring themselves to utter his name. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels devote more than three hundred pages to attacking “Saint Max,” mocking and dissecting him, yet never fully confronting him. As if his vision demanded avoidance rather than engagement.

Stirner denied every system, every moral law, every collective ideal. All, he said, are spooks. Only the unique individual, der Einzige, truly exists. Everything else such as God, truth, morality, and history is a fiction trying to claim what cannot be possessed.

Perhaps this is why the figure on the bird feels so compelling. He embodies a paradox. While Stirner’s Unique One declares freedom from all constraint, this figure reveals the cost of that freedom: a kind of existential vertigo. His hands-to-head gesture suggests not just awareness but burden. He has achieved separation from the world, yet sits precariously above it, unable to return. The bird is both his throne and his cage, lifting him even as it isolates him. The sculpture becomes a question in clay: is radical self-ownership liberation, or another form of confinement? The figure sees the world of illusions below and knows he stands apart from them, yet his face betrays no joy in that knowledge. It shows only weight.

His shadow reaches toward Nietzsche and Sartre, flickers in Heidegger’s Dasein, and now, unexpectedly, it flickers here, shaped in clay, inside a Boschian dream.

This seated figure on the bird could he be the Einzige incarnate? While those below are lost in desire, ritual, and hunger, he remains alone, above, separate. Yet what they consume seems to belong to him. His “property” is devoured by shadows, figures born of his own abandoned illusions.

He knows it. He watches. He does not intervene.

Once, in the left panel of Bosch’s Garden, he might have been free. The first human. The original witness. Adam before the naming, before shame, before Eve. Not yet sinner, not yet citizen, not yet man. A true Einzige beside God.

Can he return to that state?

His posture answers with silence.

This work captures the moment when return becomes impossible, when full awareness turns to exile. The individual understands too much and belongs nowhere. Even the bird beneath him is absurd and mythic. Even the fruit recalls loss. And so he sits, not quite tragic, not quite redeemed. Aware. Separate. Alone.

Note, that the store section on this website is reserved exclusively for artists Patreon supporters. By joining, you not only support my art but also gain private access to artworks, limited editions, and behind-the-scenes creations that are not available anywhere else. You are welcome! patreon.com/yalonetski

Nine years ago, constrained in her main profession as a sculptor by the impending birth of her youngest child, Berlin-based artist Elya Yalonetski discovered a new medium for her creative expression. What began as a playful project has evolved into a groundbreaking art movement, known far beyond Berlin, attracting hundreds of participants who engage directly in her immersive photographic installations.

Yalonetski’s innovative approach, which she calls "photo-theater" or "theater of an image," merges contemporary photography with experimental performance and participatory art. She directs every aspect of her projects, from scenario and casting to set design and photography, creating fully realized immersive environments. Technically, her work may be described as overhead photography with costumes, but this fails to capture the transformative and magical experience that participants often describe. The process encourages a unique connection to the moment, drawing people in and inviting them to pause, lie down, and gaze at the sky, becoming part of the art itself.

The upcoming exhibition marks a deliberate closing of a creative chapter. While Yalonetski’s photo-theater has traveled to France, the Czech Republic, and Russia, Berlin remains the heart of her practice. Here she has consistently sourced participants from her wide network of acquaintances to embody her envisioned motifs. For the project “Berlins Deck of Cards”, showcased in June 2021 at Panda in the Kulturbrauerei, she portrayed sixty-seven people, each contributing to the living tapestry of the city’s contemporary art scene.

Berlin itself is undergoing radical transformation. The war in Ukraine resonates deeply within the expat community, shifting moods and compelling many to move between activism and volunteer work. Amid this atmosphere, her work offers a reflective, immersive space where participants and viewers alike can engage with the city’s evolving social and cultural fabric. On March 8, more than one hundred of Yalonetski’s works will be presented at the Vinogradov Gallery, offering both a visual feast of immersive contemporary art and a historical record of the last pre-war decade.

The store section on this website is reserved exclusively for artists Patreon supporters. By joining, you not only support my art but also gain private access to artworks, limited editions, and behind-the-scenes creations that are not available anywhere else. You are welcome! patreon.com/yalonetski

In the summer of 2023, my friends from the band Dobranotch asked me for a picture of them. Following my intuition, I created the image you now see on this CD and LP cover. It captures a flying circus, a balagan, joyful and effortless, just as they used to entertain their audience with gags during concerts. Little did I know, the image would become almost prophetic: shortly after, they launched a full-scale circus project.

Tshemodan – A Klezmer Circus by Tsirk Dobranotch

Tsirk Dobranotch combines the world-renowned klezmer band Dobranotch with three interdisciplinary circus artists, blending contemporary circus, klezmer music, Yiddish theater, and humor. Their performances explore migration, exile, discrimination, and Jewish history in Europe. Ensemble members include grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, a child of Turkish immigrants to Germany, and performers recently exiled from Saint Petersburg for opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Through music, movement, and storytelling, Tsirk Dobranotch brings these personal, familial, and cultural histories to life.

You can discover more and see their performances here: Tsirk Dobranotch

As an artist, I strive to create a recognisable visual language that captures both spontaneity and narrative depth. I am always happy when a project resonates. You can get an LP with a poster on Amazon here or simply enjoy attending one of their unforgettable shows.

On June 5th, the exhibition “GlücksTon” (“Tone of Joy” / “Clay of Joy”) opened at Galerie Vinogradov, Berlin, under the fitting motto:
“Modern art can also simply be beautiful.”

The sculptures of Elya Yalonetski leave few viewers emotionally untouched. The powerful expressiveness of her faces and the flowing elegance of her figures recall the works of Chagall and Modigliani. As in Russian icon painting, Yalonetski follows a visual canon: large eyes framed by high-set brows, and a prominently stylized nose shaped with clear, angular lines.

Her artistic themes are broad, depicting lovers, mythological and fantasy worlds, playful nods to the Rococo era, ethereal angels, and motifs from Jewish heritage.

She studied at the well-known Abramtsevo Art School, dedicated to the Russian painter Viktor Vasnetsov and recognized for its leadership in applied arts since the 19th century. Before moving to Berlin, she lived in Israel and Moscow.

For this special exhibition, she collaborated with a group of international musicians to give the ancient medium of Ton, meaning both clay and tone: a new kind of resonance. Each sculpture was paired with an original musical composition, ranging from minimalist soundscapes to experimental guitar improvisations.

Visitors were often amazed at how much life Yalonetski manages to breathe into clay, more than most would think possible for such a material.
Whether that’s true? You could decide for yourself at GlücksTon.
Sound support by:
DLed (St.Petersburg/München)
Joel Enzo (München)
Atmosphaira (Berlin)
Synapsis (Berlin/Tel Aviv)

The store section on this website is reserved exclusively for artists Patreon supporters. By joining, you not only support my art but also gain private access to artworks, limited editions, and behind-the-scenes creations that are not available anywhere else. You are welcome! patreon.com/yalonetski