Only six weeks ago a small convoy of trucks fled Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. A precious cargo was on board, more than 50 artworks from the early decades of the 20th century. The fear was that Kyiv's art museums would fall foul to Russian bombardment, or be looted, as has been the impact of war on the arts since time began.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Good luck and clever logistical management saw the collection arrive in Madrid, 3750 kilometres to the west, three days later. The collection now hangs in Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, where we saw it last week.
Our son and his family live and work in Madrid and we are here to celebrate Christmas and new year. We practice social distancing, like most people here, the virus is about, but thankfully we have journeyed without the restrictions of recent years, and remain in good health.
Madrid is a welcoming, highly-liveable city. Without the blessing of local beaches or lakes or mountains, Madrid over-compensates with fine buildings, great cuisine, grand parklands, magnificent museums and galleries, and world's best public transport.
For the Ukraine collection, Madrid is the perfect temporary home, and not only because of the availability of exhibition space. The Madrid curators carry an acute awareness of the vulnerability of art during times of war and conflict. The extraordinary collection of artworks in the city's Prado museum was cocooned from aerial bombing and vicious street-by-street fighting in Madrid during Spain's three-year civil war in the 1930s.
Moreover, the permanent collection in the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum is in part the consequence of careful acquisition and protection of artworks from across Europe during two world wars.
For the Ukraine collection, Madrid is the perfect temporary home . . .
Allure from the Ukrainian exhibition comes in two ways. One is from seeing firsthand precious objects threatened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now safe, the consequence of generosity, with genuine concern for the cultural possessions of a nation under siege.
The other is in learning these objects were secreted from Soviet authorities a century ago when the USSR herded Ukraine into a military and political empire following the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.
The paintings on display in Madrid are inspired by Ukraine's fight for independence from Russia a century ago. A determined art community sought to blend unruly new approaches to art in western Europe with the images and colours of Ukrainian folk traditions.
Designs of props and costumes - like the ones by Anatol Petrytskyi (pictured) - for Ukraine's thriving theatrical community feature strongly in the exhibition.
But Moscow was not happy. An autonomous Ukrainian nation with its own language and culture ran counter to the imperial ambitions of Russian strongmen.
By the mid-1930s many of the artists whose work is now on display in Madrid were murdered by Soviet assassins. Others fled to Western Europe and North America. Art that celebrated Ukrainian history and ambitions did not fit within Stalin's version of Soviet communism.
The exhibition reminds how much museums and galleries underperform in Australia. In the main, the nation's art budget is spent on buildings in capital cities and on activities targeted at the already privileged. We pay more attention to the politics of street art than to art in our galleries, except for the annual Archibald parade of the rich and famous.
Regional cities in NSW, like Newcastle, receive a paltry cut of arts spending. The story of the struggle to fund a gallery of genuine national standing for Newcastle is one of fatigue and embarrassment. The idea that public money should foster a lively creative arts scene away from the inner suburbs of capital cities is alien to Australian government.
The Ukraine exhibition at the Thyssen shows how museums and galleries can do good, to be story tellers in everyone's lives, to hang the past before our eyes, to paint a picture of the future, to represent one culture to another.
My thanks, then, to Lucia Villanueva from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid for information about the exhibition. It is called In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900 - 1930s. Her museum has created a much-needed story of hope at a time of human history when too much of the world's natural and cultural heritage is under threat.
Phillip O'Neill is professor of economic geography at Western Sydney University
WHAT DO YOU THINK? We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on the Newcastle Herald website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. Sign up for a subscription here.
