The TBA21 Collection: two decades of art committed to ecology and social justice
Founded in 2002 by Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, the TBA21 Collection is one of the world's leading private collections of contemporary art, addressing ecological urgencies and social transformation through art.
Soon after its founding, TBA21 moved from collecting artworks to commissioning and producing artistic projects that break with traditional categories: large-scale installations, research-based works, sound compositions, performances, and contemporary architecture projects.This practice of commissioning and working in sustained collaboration with curators and artists shapes and defines the TBA21 Collection.
"A commission asks something different of you than a purchase does — you sit with an artist before the work exists, and you accept that the outcome may not be what either of you imagined at the start." — Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza
The Collection foregrounds art that engages with the great questions of our time: climate change, social and gender justice, post-human and more-than-human perspectives, Indigenous and ancestral knowledge, and ways of thinking that cross disciplines and understand the world as an ecosystem.
Unlike many collections organized by chronology or geography, TBA21 collects, curates, and produces alongside artists, always prioritizing the defense of the commons, responsibility, and socio-political urgency.
It amplifies long-underrepresented voices — those of the so-called Global South, of Indigenous and diaspora creators, and feminist, LGBTQI+, trans, and non-binary voices — with the aim of giving visibility to the complexity and diversity of the world and to the emancipatory struggle of communities that still endure extractivism and the violence of old and new forms of colonisation, through artists such as Maxwell Alexandre, Seba Calfuqueo, Kutluğ Ataman, Tarek Atoui, Taloi Havini, Seshee Dineo Bopape, Teresa Burga, Gabriel Chaile, Rashid Johnson, and Wu Tsang, among others.
TBA21's donation to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza comprises more than 180 works, alongside a loan of nearly 180 works that also brings together other major names in contemporary art, such as Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, John Akomfrah, Monica Bonvicini, Candice Breitz, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Claudia Comte, Olafur Eliasson, Nikita Kadan, Pierre Huyghe, Ernesto Neto, Walid Raad, and Bill Viola, among many others.
With the donation of such a substantial selection from the TBA21 Collection, the Museum inherits TBA21's distinctive track record and expertise in contemporary art and cultural management, forged over two decades through commissions, research, and institutional partnerships around the world. This collection also becomes a resource for other museums and cultural institutions, in Spain and abroad, strengthening exchange, mobility, and collaboration. With the donated works, TBA21 brings methodological innovation — from curatorial research to transdisciplinary processes and collaborators — embedding the Thyssen-Bornemisza contemporary collection in a global network of knowledge production and cultural diplomacy.
Over the years, TBA21 has grown into an internationally renowned nursery for creativity in art and science. With a holistic vision, TBA21 has fertilized connectedness over polarization and tentacularism over compartmentalization. Through its countless projects on natureculture and culturenature, TBA21 has voiced the unsaid and listened to the unheard. I congratulate TBA21 on the many tomorrows and futures to come.
— Olafur Eliasson
The biggest turning point in my career was the 2022 Venice Biennale, and it was made possible, to a great extent, thanks to the support of TBA21. My experience is a clear example of TBA21's important work of patronage and support, and of how, at key moments in an artistic career, this kind of push to internationalize and consolidate young artists' careers is essential.
— Teresa Solar
After more than 20 years of cheery and gloomy, couth and uncouth, guided and misguided, formal and informal conversations, chats, debates, and more, at least one thing is clear: working with an institution like TBA21, where the collection is not a vault but a long, unruly conversation among objects, practices, people, and rules to be written and rewritten, is a rarity.
— Walid Raad
I have been working with TBA21 for many years with great pleasure; they are very serious, alive, and courageous. Always up to date with the times we are living in, with one foot in the past, another in the future, and the Earth in their heart.
— Ernesto Neto
