Art patron Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza: "Protecting Ukraine and its culture is about Europe's future"
On 3 March, the solo exhibition Pedagogies of War by the Ukrainian artists Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk opened in Madrid. The project was initiated by the TBA21–Academy, a foundation established by art collector and patron Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, a key figure in the contemporary European art world who has actively supported the Ukrainian cultural community since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion.
Since 2022, Thyssen-Bornemisza has co-initiated the international museum coalition Museums for Ukraine, launched In the Eye of the Storm, an exhibition of Ukrainian modernism which after opening in Madrid travelled to leading museums across Europe, and has continued to support contemporary Ukrainian artists by incorporating their works into the TBA21 collection.
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza is the daughter of Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, one of the most prominent art collectors of the twentieth century, whose family collection became the foundation of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. She was also previously married to Karl von Habsburg, a member of the Habsburg dynasty.
Today, Thyssen-Bornemisza is widely regarded as one of the visionaries shaping contemporary cultural policy. Her projects focus on art as a space for reflecting on the future of democracy, ecology and armed conflict, as well as a tool for generating knowledge.
Exclusively for Ukrainska Pravda.Culture, Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza spoke with curator and Deputy Chair of Kulturstiftung Ukraine Maria Isserlis about supporting Ukrainian culture, peace as something that Europe has long taken for granted, and the mistakes Europe has made that it will now have to reconsider.
Maria Isserlis: Francesca, you've been very active since the early days of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. You've mobilised a large part of the international art community, co-organised a major fundraiser in Venice, brought Ukrainian modernist art to Europe in 2022, supported Ukrainian artists by acquiring their works for the TBA21 collection, and now you are once again giving a prominent platform to Ukrainian voices with Pedagogies of War.
What was the moment when you realised you had to act and begin this whole process?
Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza: I remember feeling a kind of disbelief that something like this could happen again at this stage in Europe. I had a similar reaction during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, when Dubrovnik was under attack, and I was very active then as well. Of course, suffering is not unique to Europe. Wars in Sudan, Gaza, Iran and elsewhere remind us that people are suffering all over the world. But Ukraine is part of Europe, and for many of us, the historical memory of the region makes this especially immediate.
Being Hungarian, and having spent a great deal of time across Eastern Europe, I am very conscious of the realities that existed under Soviet rule, particularly in the decades leading up to the 1980s. I travelled extensively through the region during the time of the USSR. When you have seen the face of that system, the intimidation, the lack of basic human rights, the atmosphere of fear, even the idea that people could advance themselves by informing on their neighbours, it leaves a very deep impression.
Perhaps this is a long answer, but for those who experienced it, or grew up hearing about it from their parents, there is a strong sense of how fragile freedom actually is. My parents' generation fought for a free and peaceful Europe, yet many of us grew up taking that peace for granted. I think that is the key realisation: we underestimate how hard people fought for it, and how easily it can be lost if it is not actively protected, even within one or two generations.
When the invasion began in February 2022, we were watching the news like everyone else, seeing the satellite images of the military build-up and thinking this cannot really be happening. And then suddenly there were these long columns of Russian military vehicles moving across Ukraine. In the early days many people even mocked how disorganised it looked, tanks and trucks stuck on the roads. But in reality it showed how unprepared we were to imagine that a full-scale war could return to Europe.
At that point I felt we had to act quickly. Together with colleagues and friends, including you, we began to mobilise the international museum community. That is how Museums for Ukraine started. I began calling people I knew: curators, museum directors, colleagues across Europe, asking how we could support Ukrainian institutions and artists. It had been some time since I had been closely connected to Ukraine, so I also had to quickly reconnect with people and understand what was most urgently needed. But there was a real sense that the cultural community had to respond immediately.
Culture has always played an important role in your life. Is this something that comes from your family, from your father? The cultural connection to Eastern Europe is not new for you. Your father brought the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection to the Soviet Union – I remember what a deep impression the exhibition left on my grandfather and my mother when it was shown in Kyiv in 1984. We still have our copy of the catalogue. Could you tell us more about that experience and what it meant at the time?
My father broke many barriers early on by lending works from his collection to museums in the Soviet Union, and specifically to Kyiv, including the exhibition shown there in 1984. At the time, these were extraordinarily generous gestures. The works travelled without the kinds of insurance and institutional guarantees that today would be considered indispensable for loans of that scale. But these exchanges were reciprocal. In return we received remarkable works: Malevich, Impressionists, Old Masters. Over the decades there were five such exchanges.
For my father, this was fundamentally about building cultural dialogue during the Cold War. He believed that art could open channels of understanding across the Iron Curtain and reveal how closely our cultures were connected, despite the political divisions.
Looking at the situation today, it feels as if the dynamics have shifted in a troubling way. During the Cold War there was at least a certain restraint between leaders who understood the catastrophic risks of escalation. Today many conflicts seem increasingly driven by the control of resources: minerals, oil, gas. As I said recently in a speech, occupation very often goes hand in hand with extraction. Anyone who understands what extraction means for the planet, and for our collective future, should find that deeply alarming. Europe, I think, was slow to recognise how these dynamics were developing. There is now a clear urgency to rethink our dependencies and strengthen Europe's ability to act independently.
Returning to my father's legacy, he was visionary in understanding that cultural exchange could open conversations where politics could not. His exhibition in Kyiv made a profound impression. There is also a remarkable continuity there. Yulia Lytvynets, today the director of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, saw that exhibition as a child. Years later she became one of the key figures with whom we worked when bringing Ukrainian modernist art to Madrid.
For me that connection is very meaningful, because it shows how cultural encounters can resonate across generations.
The exhibition In the Eye of the Storm sent a powerful message to the international art community. It was crucial to bring Ukrainian works from museum collections outside the country and present them here in Madrid at the Thyssen. At the time, very few institutions were able to act so quickly to organise such an exhibition and ensure the safety of these masterpieces.
To be very honest, I was not alone in this. The initiative was driven by Konstantin Akinsha, Yulia Lytvynets, the director of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, and by you as well. What happened on my side was that during a meeting at the Thyssen Museum I simply said: we should really do something for Ukraine. The minister of culture was present, and there was immediate agreement that we had to act.
At that moment I had with me a folder of extraordinary paintings that Konstantin had prepared for a publication with Thames & Hudson. We realised that this material could form the basis of a very strong exhibition. Everything moved extremely quickly. We essentially worked overnight to bring the idea together, and when I presented it to the museum, the response was immediate. It was exactly the kind of project the Thyssen Museum felt it should support.
I will never forget the moment when the transport company confirmed they would take the risk. It was the Austrian-Ukrainian company Kunsttrans, and they agreed to move the works despite the extraordinary circumstances. The convoy reached the border on a day when missiles were being launched against infrastructure across the country, including in Lviv. One of those missiles was even intercepted over Poland. It was the 19th of November. I will never forget that day.
We were extremely anxious that the border might suddenly close and that the paintings would be trapped inside the country. Thanks to the Ukrainian ambassador in Madrid, who had strong contacts in Poland, we were able to coordinate everything and the works were allowed to cross.
When the paintings finally passed the border there was applause. The whole operation had been completely confidential, and I had not slept for several days.
The exhibition itself was received far beyond what we had imagined. Very quickly other museums expressed interest in showing it. The Belvedere in Vienna, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Bozar in Brussels, and the Royal Academy in London all joined the tour. It became a much larger international project than we had initially anticipated.
Returning to the idea of generational continuity: like your father, you have continued collecting, focusing on contemporary art, and your collection today also includes a number of Ukrainian artists. You now have works by artists such as Nikita Kadan, Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk, Pavlo Makov, Masha Reva, Alina Zamanova, and many others.
You had begun paying attention to Ukrainian artistic positions even before the full-scale invasion, but since then this engagement has become even stronger – also as a way of supporting cultural life in Ukraine. You have travelled to Kyiv several times and visited artists in their studios personally.
Today we are seeing an incredibly strong generation of young Ukrainian artists emerging. There is so much talent, energy and urgency in their work. Thanks to you, Masha, I was able to visit studios in Kyiv, meet many of these artists, and spend time with them. Some of their works are now in my apartment, like this Pavlo Makov work, and it has been a privilege to follow their development more closely.
I also remember the sense of normality Kyiv had not so long ago, when people were simply going about their lives and there was a real feeling of openness and optimism. That atmosphere now feels very fragile.
When dialogue disappears, when cultural exchange is interrupted, countries quickly begin to feel isolated and abandoned. That is why maintaining these connections is so important.
For me, supporting Ukraine is not about charity or symbolism. Ukraine has a clear place in Europe and in the world: culturally, economically, industrially and agriculturally. With its resources and its people, it should be able to rebuild itself without having to trade away its future in exchange for protection. And in this sense I believe Europe now has to confront some very serious mistakes and rethink its responsibilities.
But now we are here in Madrid, where TBA21 has opened Pedagogies of War at the Thyssen, curated by Chus Martínez, presenting the work of Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk. This is another important step in your support of Ukrainian culture, but it's also a risk. These artists are not yet widely known to the Western public. And you are giving them a prime moment during ARCO [ARCOmadrid is Spain's international contemporary art fair – ed.], when the entire art world is in Madrid and will see the show.
It was a calculated risk.
I have known Roman and Yarema for some time. They are extraordinary people and very talented. I first saw their work thanks to you when I came to Ukraine in November 2023. It was very cold. We were sitting in a café near the Lavra, opposite the Arsenal, after visiting the museum. That is when you introduced us. They showed me The Wanderer. I remember thinking immediately how powerful it was. In fact, it is the first work you encounter when entering the exhibition space at the Thyssen Museum. And all the works in the show carry that same intensity.
What I find particularly important in their work is that it confronts something we rarely question today. We have developed a toxic fascination with images, especially through social media. It distorts our sense of reality. Violence begins to feel normal. Horror, torture, dead children in cities. Images arriving endlessly on our phones from Ukraine, from Palestine, from everywhere. You wake up in the morning and they are already there.
Over time this constant exposure numbs us. Things that should shock us start to feel almost ordinary.
Roman and Yarema approach this in a very different way. They translate suffering, dislocation, isolation, and the anticipation of the next attack into a very quiet visual language. There is a strange calm in their work. That calm reflects a very real state of being. The moment in between. In between bombings, in between attacks. It is that unsettling pause when you know something may happen. When you hear explosions somewhere not far away. I have experienced that myself. I know the sound of the sirens.
For me it was important that visitors could feel this in the exhibition, through sound but also through silence. And the reaction has been striking. In Spain people usually talk constantly, but when they enter that room they become completely quiet. They move between the screens and you can literally hear a pin drop.
People are deeply affected by it. I think that is why the exhibition has received so much attention. The reviews have been excellent. The artists also gave very thoughtful interviews, and we organised two public talks around the project.
Roman and Yarema have been working together for ten years, and that partnership is very clear in the work. They think and articulate their ideas extremely well.
Artists working at that level deserve support. And I am quite certain we will be seeing much more of them in the coming years.
To conclude our conversation, perhaps you could tell me a little about your current personal interests in contemporary artistic practice and what TBA21 is focusing on at the moment?
At TBA21 we have been thinking a great deal about democracies and peace, which may be the most complex subject of all. Not peace as an abstract idea, but peace as a process. The question is how societies learn to live with one another and with nature at a time when ecological breakdown and democratic erosion are happening simultaneously.
For us this means that cultural institutions cannot remain only places where art is presented. They must also become laboratories where we rethink the political architectures through which societies organise coexistence. Through TBA21–Academy we have been developing the idea of what we call an Ecology of Democracy.
Democracy is not a fixed institutional model. It is a living system shaped by relations between cultures, territories, ecosystems and collective imaginaries. And many of the crises we face today share the same roots. Environmental degradation, democratic fragility, violent conflicts, even the crisis of truth. All of these are connected to extractive systems of power that prioritise domination and expansion rather than care and responsibility. For TBA21, engaging with such projects does not represent a departure from ecological inquiry, but rather an extension of it. Environmental crises are inseparable from histories of colonialism, militarisation and territorial conflict. From the destruction of ecosystems during armed conflict to the ecological consequences of displacement and resource extraction, war has profound environmental dimensions that demand cultural and political reflection.
![Installation view of the exhibition otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua [“other mountains, adrift beneath the waves”], Ocean Space, Venice. Courtesy of TBA21–Academy](https://uimg.pravda.com.ua/buckets/upstatic/system/MediaPhoto/photo/b/a/788908/bac637cd3ae19b1dd28391a7bfee46731773412221.jpg?w=1200&q=90&f=webp)
This is why we have developed platforms such as Organismo within TBA21–Academy, where artists work alongside scientists and other practitioners to explore these systemic questions. We take artistic practice seriously as a form of knowledge, capable of revealing the cultural narratives and visual regimes through which societies understand conflict, justice and the possibility of peace. Exhibitions such as Pedagogies of War by Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk reflect this approach.
By supporting projects that confront war, displacement and political struggle alongside ecological transformation, and by building the laboratories, programmes and applied research structures through which artistic knowledge can be put to work, TBA21 seeks to highlight the complex entanglements between environmental justice and democratic life.
Installation view of the exhibition otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua ["other mountains, adrift beneath the waves"], Ocean Space, Venice. Courtesy of TBA21–Academy. Photo: Jacopo Salvi.
In this context, places such as Venice continue to be very important for us. Through Ocean Space we have been able to build a long-term platform where artistic research engages with marine ecosystems, environmental questions and new forms of collective thinking. At the same time it allows us to invite partners such as the Ukrainian Institute. Venice remains a global stage, and it is essential that Ukrainian voices continue to be present there.
At the same time, I must say I am concerned by how quickly attempts appear to normalise Russia again in international cultural contexts. Protecting Ukraine and its cultural identity is not only about Ukraine. It is also about the future of Europe.
And finally I must say how proud I am to be here in Spain. Spain has shown strong support for Ukraine from the beginning. Yesterday the minister of culture came to visit the exhibition, which was a very meaningful moment.
Maria Isserlis