PCAI is glad to announce that PCAI collection artists Angelo Plessas and Agnieszka Polska will be part of the exhibition Gifts of Friendship at Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź.
The exhibition brings 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.
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.
Artists
ms1: Richard Demarco Archive (selection), Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Isabel Cornaro, Jakub Czyszczoń, Anchan / Anna Daučiková, Cian Dayrit, Cecile Dupaquier, Veronika Hapchenko, Morgan Fisher, Andrea Fraser, Barbara Hammer, Liam Gillick, João Maria Gusmão, Agata Ingarden, Zuzanna Janin, Eduardo Kac, Nikita Kadan, Tomasz Kowalski, Jiri Kovanda, Susanne Kriemann, Kamil Kuskowski, Katalin Ladik, Diana Lelonek, Zbigniew Libera, Jumana Manna, Tomasz Machciński, Marcin Maciejowski, Dora Maurer, Yarema Malashchuk & Roman Khimei, Josiah McElheny, Verena Melgarejo Weinandt, John Miller, Haroon Mirza, Deimantas Narkevičius, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Paulina Ołowska, Angelo Plessas, Agnieszka Polska, Cezary Poniatowki, Jeff Preiss, Florian Pumhösl, Willem de Rooij, Wilhelm Sasnal, K.ari.n Schneider, Janek Simon, Viktor Timofeev, Suzanne Treister, R.H. Quaytman, James Welling, Julita Wójcik, Fernando Varela, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Anton Vidokle, Tobias Zielony, Heimo Zobernig
ms2: Agata Bogacka, Agnieszka Brzeżańska, Yane Calovski, Lou Cantor, Jasmina Cibic, Gelatin, Liam Gillick, Thomas Hirschhorn, Hassan Kahn, Nikolai Karabinovych, Kitty Kraus, Ghislane Leung, Mykola Ridnyi, John Smith, Hito Steyerl, Gabriele Stötzer, Michael Stevenson, Iza Tarasewicz, Franz Erhard Walther
Duration: May 15–December 30, 2026
More information here.
Activity aligned with Goals 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17
