Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź presents Gifts of Friendship, an exhibition bringing together nearly 150 artworks donated to the museum’s collection in 2024–2026 by 80 artists from several dozen countries. Conceived as both a presentation of these works and a reflection on the meaning of artistic solidarity today, the exhibition foregrounds the role of friendship, trust, and long-term collaboration as forces shaping institutional collection beyond market logics.
The works included in Gifts of Friendship entered the collection as gestures of support for the museum and its program. Many were donated by artists who have maintained long-standing relationships with Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, while others reflect more recent encounters and collaborations. Together, they form a multidimentional portrait of a museum understood not as a neutral repository of objects, but as a living network of artistic exchange.
Since its founding in 1931, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź has developed its collection through close cooperation with artists—from the International Collection of Modern Art initiated by Władysław Strzemiński, Katarzyna Kobro, and the a.r. group, to subsequent generations of artists contributing works in the spirit of shared responsibility for the public role of art. Gifts of Friendship revisits and updates this historical model, demonstrating how acts of donation continue to shape the museum’s identity in the present.
The exhibition includes works by artists associated with the museum over many decades—including Liam Gillick, K.ari.n Schneider, and R.H. Quaytman—as well as artists whose practices have entered into dialogue with its program more recently, among them Jasmina Cibic, Veronika Hapchenko, Agata Ingarden, Nikita Kadan, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Paulina Ołowska, Agnieszka Polska, Mykola Ridnyi, Viktor Timofeev, Julita Wójcik, and Anton Vidokle. There are also artists who contributed for the first time – including Yane Calovski, Andrea Fraser, Josiah McElheny, and Jeff Preiss.
Installed across the galleries of ms¹ and ms² venues, the exhibition explores donation as a relational practice and as an exercise in institutional imagination. It embraces and blends three poetical and political dimensions: visions of the present and the future; interpretations of the avant-garde and post-constructivist legacies; collecting and reciprocity as holders of memory and identity. It asks how collections are shaped not only through acquisition policies and historical canons but also through acts of generosity that redefine the museum as a site of shared authorship.
Curated by Barbara Piwowarska, Gifts of Friendship forms part of a broader program at Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź dedicated to rethinking the collection as a dynamic and evolving structure shaped through dialogue with artists and audiences alike.
