Ukrainian sculpture of the 20th century: main ideological and plastic transformations

Abstract

In this article we attempt at demonstrating the inseparability of Ukrainian sculpture from global culture creating process despite cultural and political isolation as a component republic of the Soviet Union for over 70 years of the 20th century. There is a considerable difference in the character of creativity of Ukrainian sculptors, who lived and worked within the borders of the Soviet Union, and those, who migrated to Western Europe or America and had an opportunity to freely experiment with shape and ideas. In this article, particular attention is dedicated to those personalities that have made the most significant ideological and plastic transformations in the 20th-century sculpture with respect to the previous epochs, i.e., to the sculpture of avant-garde and modernism. The last decade of the 20th century was marked by the end of the Soviet-era cultural isolation from the democratic world, when a powerful stream of information penetrated the artistic arena of already independent and open Ukraine, and simultaneously the examples of various conceptual trends and styles appeared – from pop art and installation to performance art, which influenced the development of sculpture.