In Lviv, as part of Lviv Sculpture Week 2026, a new artwork has been installed — the concrete sculpture “Totem” by Oleksii Abramov. The piece has been placed at the crossroads of Stepan Bandera Street and General Chuprynka Street.
The sculpture was created in 2026. In the artist’s conception, “Totem” takes the form of an archaic, enigmatic head through which he explores individual sensations, emotions and a person’s inner reflections. The work is part of a series of the same name, in which each form exists as a separate subject and embodies a particular state, image or experience.
In the author’s concept, the totem appears as an entity with which a community feels a spiritual kinship and perceives it as a symbol of its lineage. All the sculptures in the series are united by an archaic, almost primeval character that alludes to ancient symbols and the earliest forms of art.
Lviv Sculpture Week has been held for five years in a row. The idea of a dedicated week for sculpture emerged in 2022 at “Ya Gallery” during the exhibition “New Lviv Sculpture”. It was then that Orest Holubets, a professor at the Academy of Arts, proposed setting aside a separate week in Lviv every year specifically for this art form. The initiative was supported by the Academy of Arts, and the first event was the exhibition “Chaos” in the old workshops, curated by Pavlo Hudimov.
In 2023, as part of Sculpture Week, the large-scale project “Old and New / New and Old” was implemented at the Palace of Arts, and the “Sculpture Route” from the collection of Yurii Stashkiv was presented. The following year, 2024, the theme “Trace of Memory” brought together museums, galleries and the open-air museum.
In 2025, Sculpture Week was held under the title “Dialogues”. More than 20 Ukrainian and foreign sculptors took part, with their works exhibited at over ten locations across the city. The main project, “Glyptotheque”, was presented at Lviv Polytechnic, which became the festival’s new partner.
This year, Lviv Sculpture Week 2026 has the theme “The Hidden”. The main exhibition of the same name has opened in the Machine Hall of Lviv Polytechnic. It can be visited daily from 12:00 to 19:00, with free admission.