17 October 2025

Opening of the permanent collection display: Ways of Seeing. The Muzeum Sztuki Collection in Łódź

Paweł Kowalewski's work "Golden Sunset" (1989) will become part of the new permanent exhibition "Ways of Seeing. The Muzeum Sztuki Collection in Łódź." The MSŁ collection is one of the most prestigious museum collections in the country, focused mainly on 20th- and 21st-century art. It is also a rare chance to see modern and contemporary art as part of a permanent collection, open to visitors without a time limit. Ways of Seeing. The Muzeum Sztuki Collection in Łódź is a new permanent display of the museum's holdings — a multi-threaded story about 20th- and 21st-century art, and about the museum itself as an institution of artistic experiment, avant-garde thought and solidarity. The exhibition focuses on the phenomenon of seeing — both as a biological function and as a cultural and political act. Divided into more than a dozen thematic chapters, it presents art as a tool of knowledge, a way of asking how and why we look. Among the themes explored are: the relationship between sight and memory, the social contexts of looking, perception as a form of knowledge and a tool of resistance, and questions of identity, corporeality and the sensory experience of reality. The exhibition's title nods to John Berger's famous series and to Władysław Strzemiński's Theory of Vision. Both share the conviction that looking is never neutral — it is an act shaped by culture, history and emotion. The display includes works by, among others, Katarzyna Kobro, Maria Jarema, Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, Zofia Rydet, Alina Szapocznikow, R.H. Quaytman, Katja Novitskova, Marysia Lewandowska, Frank Bowling and Zbigniew Libera. The works are not arranged chronologically — instead, the exhibition leads visitors through chapters titled after the works on show, such as Description of a Photograph, Multiple Portrait, Circle of Acceleration, Superobjects, and A Gaze Is a Bridge. An important context for the exhibition is Gifts of Friendship — nearly a hundred works donated to Muzeum Sztuki by artists from around the world. This act of solidarity recalls the institution's avant-garde roots, which in 1931 initiated the International Collection of Modern Art thanks to gifts from artists. Among the works donated in 2025 are pieces by Liam Gillick, Sharon Lockhart, Nikita Kadan, Ghislaine Leung, Kateryna Lysovenko, Goshka Macuga, Wilhelm Sasnal, Jasmina Cibic, IRWIN and Zuzanna Janin. Some of these will be on view from October as part of the new permanent exhibition. The show is accompanied by two publications: an illustrated catalogue with essays by Mieke Bal and Łukasz Zaremba, and an anthology of texts by artists on seeing, perception and the co-creation of meaning — books that, like the exhibition, treat art as a form of thinking and of dialogue with reality. Ways of Seeing. The Muzeum Sztuki Collection in Łódź is held under the honorary patronage of Marta Cienkowska, Minister of Culture and National Heritage, and Joanna Skrzydlewska, Marshal of the Łódź Voivodeship. We're delighted to invite you to the first of three days celebrating the opening of the new permanent exhibition Ways of Seeing. Join us for an event that opens a new chapter in the presentation of the Museum's collection.