Lviv opens Oleh Tistol exhibition featuring soldiers’ shadows as symbols of memory

17.08.2026, 17:31 rubryka.com

One shows a standing figure, another shows two people sitting opposite each other, and a third shows a person with a prosthetic leg.

Andrii Moskalenko, Lviv's first deputy mayor, attended the exhibition opening. During the event, he emphasized the exhibition space's importance as a site where new meanings emerge, as well as the role of veterans in the project.

In the project "Shadows of Choice 'Anghiari,'" Oleh Tistol reflects on choice, presence, and memory through the motif of shadow. The shadows of soldiers in his works become images of dignity and hope, moving beyond a purely military context.

The project invites viewers to see shadow as a language of memory and a living image that exists beyond time. According to the artist, not only did the final result matter in the work on the exhibition, but above all, the process itself.

Oleh Tistol said the idea for the project began to take shape around communication with soldiers.

Photo source: Lviv City Council

"We wanted to make it a kind of activity. These are real shadows. At first, we persuaded them, and then the guys responded themselves — soldiers came, our people, the ones depicted here. We talked and simply drew real shadows," the artist explained.

According to him, he created a significant part of the works presented in 2025. That was when soldiers came to Lviv, met with the artist, and joined the creative process.

During the opening, Lviv Polytechnic Rector Nataliia Shakhovska emphasized the shadow motif's specific nature. She noted that a shadow constantly changes and therefore is not a fixed value.

Photo source: Lviv City Council

According to Nataliia Shakhovska, the exhibition gains special significance because of the shadows the audience sees in the display.

Photo source: Lviv City Council

"These are the shadows of those thanks to whom we live, thanks to whom we can exist as a nation, thanks to whom we are still Ukrainians. These are our heroes, our titans," Nataliia Shakhovska said.

Oleh Tistol's exhibition project "Shadows of Choice 'Anghiari'" became the first exhibition to open the "POLITE" gallery at Lviv Polytechnic National University.

Background

Oleh Tistol is one of the well-known representatives of contemporary Ukrainian art and an artist of the "New Ukrainian Wave" generation. He was born in 1960 in Vradiivka, Mykolaiv region, and graduated from the Lviv State Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts in 1984.

Oleh Tistol works with painting, photography, sculpture, installation, and other forms of contemporary art. In his works, he rethinks Ukrainian history, culture, national identity, and cultural symbols.

It should be noted that in June, the Andrei Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv opened the exhibition "HERE," which, for the first time, brought together works by three well-known Ukrainian artists — sculptors Vasyl Yarych and Oleksandr Diachenko, and painter Oleksandr Babak.

It was also reported that the exhibition "Kvit Pamiati" opened in Kyiv on June 5, featuring works by 17 women who lost loved ones in the war. They are wives, mothers, sisters, children, and fiancées of fallen or missing defenders of Ukraine. The exhibition takes place as part of the "Living Memory" initiative by the NGO "To Be."