The Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź is an institution that came into being not thanks to major state acquisitions or the whims of millionaire collectors, but through the generosity of the community. Artists gifted their works to other artists, believing that art can function beyond the logic of the market, ownership and prestige.
The exhibition Gifts of Friendship, opening on 15 May, draws on this very source. It is a story not only about works of art, but, above all, about relationships. It is a story about how a museum collection can be the result of trust, solidarity and long-standing partnership. It is also a story about how the concept of the gift, though now almost utopian, remains very much alive.
Museum built on gestures
When, back in the 1920s, Władysław Strzemiński, Katarzyna Kobro, and other artists associated with the a.r. group began to create the International Collection of Modern Art, they were doing something unprecedented. Thanks to their connections within the avant-garde art scene, they managed to gather works donated directly by the artists themselves. The first public display of the collection took place in 1931. It became the foundation of the Muzeum Sztuki, one of the most important modern art institutions in this part of Europe. From the very beginning, it was a collection built differently from that of most museums, that is, through a network of relationships and ideas.
Avant-garde artists believed that art should affect reality and contribute to social change. The act of giving thus had a political and symbolic dimension: it marked an attempt to create a community that transcended national borders, languages and class divisions. In this sense, the collection was not merely a set of objects, but also a social project. The new exhibition shows that this story is by no means over.
Avant-garde artists believed that art should affect reality and contribute to social change. The act of giving thus had a political and symbolic dimension: it marked an attempt to create a community that transcended national borders, languages and class divisions.
Gift as a form of solidarity
Gifts of Friendship presents nearly 150 works donated to the museum between 2024 and 2026 by some 80 artists from dozens of countries. The starting point was the crisis faced by the institution. The museum turned to the artistic community for support, and, once again, the response came in the form of gifts. It is a very significant gesture, particularly nowadays, when the world of art is so closely tied to the market, auctions and private collecting. By deciding to donate their works to a public institution, artists shared their works with a wider community of viewers.
The curator of the exhibition, Barbara Piwowarska, focuses primarily on showcasing the relational aspect of the collection. A gift is not a one-off act of generosity here. It is a process based on three elements: giving, receiving, and reciprocating. The artist donates a work, the museum takes responsibility for it and shows it to the public. What emerges is a relationship based on mutual trust. In this sense, the museum ceases to be merely a place for storing art and becomes a living network of exchange, a space co-created by artists and the public.
In a world full of political tensions, economic uncertainty and social divisions, the idea of the gift gains a new meaning. It is the attempt to build a community across these divisions.
Daniel Muzyczuk, Director of the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, notes that the institution has always operated on the belief that artworks can circulate in ways other than solely via the market. Today, this thought resonates particularly strongly. In a world full of political tensions, economic uncertainty and social divisions, the idea of the gift gains a new meaning. It is the attempt to build a community across these divisions.
In this context, it is difficult not to think of the Polish experiences of solidarity and the social energy that is particularly activated in periods of crisis. Over the years, this has been evident, for instance, in various grassroots aid initiatives and online fundraisers. Poland continues to have a strong need for collective action, and the exhibition at the Muzeum Sztuki can be seen as part of this broader social context.
Between the avant-garde and the present
The Gifts of Friendship exhibition is divided into three sections, presented across the museum’s two buildings. In ms1, the point of reference is the historic Neoplastic Room – one of the most notable achievements of the Polish avant-garde. This is where the dialogue with the history of the museum and the question of what the avant-garde’s legacy might be today resound most profoundly. The exhibited works seek to explore whether the old ideas of community and artistic exchange continue to be relevant.
In the works of artists such as Veronika Hapchenko, Nikita Kadan, and Liam Gillick, the past intertwines with the experience of contemporary crises and conflicts. Themes related to war, decay, and the necessity of rebuilding relationships resonate particularly strongly here.
Works by Veronika Hapchenko bring together the history of the avant-garde with the language of contemporary painting. The artist references Soviet history and the origins of the early twentieth-century avant-garde but does so without resorting to historical costume or nostalgia. Her paintings feature airbrushed silhouettes resembling figures emerging from memory or a dream. The repeated figures, in turn, evoke the aesthetics of the Futurists attempting to capture the movement, rhythm and dynamism of modernity. In Hapchenko’s work, however, this old language of the avant-garde is tinged with unease; history appears here not as a plan for progress, but as a collection of spectres and unresolved experiences.
Nikita Kadan, one of the most important contemporary Ukrainian artists, approaches his work differently. His art is rooted in both the traditions of conceptualism and geometric art, drawing heavily on references to science and mathematics. Kadan frequently reaches back to the history of the Ukrainian avant-garde, treating it not as a closed chapter in the history of art, but as a tool for exploring the contemporary political paradoxes. In his works, the modernist belief in a rational order clashes with the experience of war, violence and the collapse of social structures. Geometric forms, archival references and a cold visual language become a tool for narrating a reality that has lost its stability long ago.
Liam Gillick is an artist who has been analysing the mechanisms of economics, labour and social organisation for years, examining how modern institutions and models of cooperation function. His projects often expose the dysfunctional nature of the modernist legacy and reveal that the old visions of a rationally structured society have left behind not only ideas of emancipation, but also systems of exclusion and hierarchy. The artist studies the language of communication and cooperation, whilst simultaneously exposing its fragility.
Another significant part of the exhibition is the works of Paulina Ołowska and Wilhelm Sasnal. Ołowska has been revisiting the history of modernism and the Eastern European aesthetic for years, restoring the memory of forgotten female artists, designers and the failed utopias of modernity. Her work proves that art history can be a space for recovering previously invisible narratives. Sasnal, on the other hand, manages to capture the tension between private experience and collective memory even in his most modest works. His art often operates through understatement, as if trying to show that contemporary history consists of fragments, images and emotional traces rather than a single coherent narrative.
As a whole, the exhibition is not a closed reflection on the past. It continually poses questions about the future of public institutions and the role museums can play today, especially in a world increasingly marked by political, economic and social crises.
Museum as a community
The section of the exhibition presented at ms2 engages in a dialogue with the museum’s permanent exhibition, Ways of Seeing, and focuses more on the present and the future. The works featured in this section concern the post-crisis world – uncertain and unstable, and yet searching for new forms of coexistence.
The works of Hito Steyerl, one of the most important contemporary artists analysing the relationships between technology, politics and the image, are particularly interesting. For years, her artistic practice has focused on the issues of new media and how images are distributed, as seen from a feminist and postcolonial perspective. Steyerl demonstrates that today, images are not simply neutral carriers of information or aesthetic experiences. They function within systems of power, the economy and violence, and are involved in the circulation of data, control, and political narratives. The artist analyses how contemporary technology influences our perception of reality and how images are becoming a tool for both emancipation and manipulation.
Gabriele Stötzer is an artist who was once associated with the opposition movement in East Germany. Her work A Handful of Soil is exceptionally intimate and symbolic in nature. It consists of photographs of hands – in some, they remain empty; in others, they are holding soil, grains of wheat or a woman’s breast. These simple images trigger a whole network of associations linked to corporeality, care, memory, and rootedness. Here, the hand becomes a sign of both absence and the potential for care or the formation of bonds. This work can be read as a metaphor for memory, but also as an attempt to reconnect with what is material, communal, and intimate.
Here, the museum is not a neutral repository for artworks. It becomes an organism dependent on people, relationships and acts of solidarity.
Indeed, community seems to be the most important theme of this exhibition. A community built through exchange, responsibility and reciprocity. Here, the museum is not a neutral repository for artworks. It becomes an organism dependent on people, relationships and acts of solidarity. Gifts of Friendship reminds us that a museum collection can be more than just a set of valuable objects. It can be a record of human relationships – a sign of trust and faith that art is still capable of creating a space for shared experience.
In times when cultural institutions are increasingly forced to fight for survival, such a narrative feels particularly timely. And perhaps that is precisely why the exhibition in Łódź is something more than just another presentation of new acquisitions. We can view it as a reminder that culture cannot exist without a community of people ready to co-create it.
