Enemies of the People
The Thyssen Museum will host a wide selection of Ukrainian avant-garde art, opening on Tuesday, November 29, with a focus on 69 works by visionary creators who shaped Ukraine’s modern art scene. The collection features paintings, drawings, collages and stage designs by artists such as Sonia Delaunay, Aleksandra Ekster, Wladimir Baranoff-Rossiné and Viktor Palmov, presented amid the tense backdrop of an ongoing conflict with Russia.
Serhii Pohoreltsev, Ukraine’s ambassador to Spain, underscored the importance of supporting Ukrainian culture, saying that Russia has long tried to appropriate Ukraine’s artistic identity. He described the struggle as a cultural genocide, noting that recognizing and owning Ukrainian artists is a vital stand against erasure.
Guillermo Solana, artistic director of Thyssen, explained that the idea for the exhibition emerged after the Russian invasion in late February. The initiative came from Francesca Thyssen, president of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation for Contemporary Art, who recalled her father Baron Thyssen’s goal of contributing to world peace through art.
Recent events included a challenging departure of Ukrainian works from the National Museum of Art and the Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine. The convoy carrying Kiev’s paintings faced a delay of many hours at the Polish border during a period of heightened tension following a missile incident in Poland.
The curator Francesca Thyssen remarked that culture and art often become targets in such moments. She noted that Putin seeks to control both territory and narrative, pointing to a history where cultural destruction and the repression of Ukrainian artists have occurred under various regimes.
One of the exhibition’s curators, Konstantin Akinsha, warned about the risk of looting of works belonging to Ukrainian museums and institutions. He stressed that the international law framework must be upheld and that the current situation represents a grave violation that institutions must confront with vigilance.
During a presentation of the exhibition, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that culture must triumph now just as it did a century ago. He emphasized the power of artistic language to connect Ukraine with Europe and thanked Spain for its support.
The exhibit traces the evolution of Ukrainian avant-garde in the wake of empire collapses, World War I, and the 1917 revolutions, followed by the Ukrainian struggle for independence from 1917 to 1921 and the subsequent formation of Soviet Ukraine.
Stalinist repression hit Ukrainian intellectuals hard, with many writers, theatre directors and artists facing execution. The era’s tragedies included the Holodomor of 1932 and 1933, which caused the loss of millions of lives.
Decades of Creative Resilience
Despite this grim history, Ukrainian art experienced a revival marked by experimentation. The exhibition collects 69 works across painting, drawing, collage and theatre design, offering a window into a vibrant era of artistic courage. It spotlights artists who were long misunderstood or denied recognition due to political narratives that tried to claim them as purely Russian. The show argues for the independence of Ukrainian avant-garde, highlighting figures who remain central to national and European art history.
The display is organized to follow a chronological arc and a thematic thread, presenting a spectrum of styles and identities. From Neo-Byzantine paintings associated with followers of Mykhailo Boichuk to works by Kazymyr Malevych and El Lissitzky, who did significant work in Ukraine, the exhibition maps a rich tapestry of form and idea.