Mission of the Museum is to create conditions enabling contemporary viewer to communicate with the artistic oeuvre of the past and present generations and through it to awake his ability to independent viewing, understanding and feeling surrounding him reality. Museum promotes art as en essential element of social life, which is able to make human existence fuller and more valuable. Mission purpose is realized through collecting, conserving, and elaborating collection as well as through realization of the artistic undertakings and broadly understood scientific, educational and popularization activity. For the sake of close relation of the Museum’s history with the history of avant-garde, a special emphasis in its activity is put on the promotion of progressive artistic phenomena and on the cooperation with their authors.

A stepping stone for 20th and 21st century art collection of Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, Poland – one of the oldest modern art museums in the world – is the International Collection of Modern Art of the “a.r.” group (opened 1931). It defined the avant-garde character of the whole museum. It is a unique phenomenon as it was initiated and called to life by the artists themselves and consists of artists’ donations; it assumed its shape as a result of solidary effort to act above and against boundaries. The initiator and driving force of the movement was Władysław Strzemiński, a painter, art theorist and “a.r” group leader, with active support from the sculptor and his wife Katarzyna Kobro, the painter Henryk Stażewski, and the poets – Jan Brzękowski and Julian Przyboś, although it is a result of many people’s efforts, also Hans Arp and Michel Seuphor to name a few. They were able to collect in a period 1929-1931 in total 111 works of the outstanding representatives of Polish and international avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, representing movements beginning with cubism, futurism, constructivism, purism and neoplasticism and ending with surrealism. As a result the Collection was a cross-section of the avant-garde trends and tendencies of the late 1920’s, with a unique presentation of abstractionists such as Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Theo van Doesburg or Georges Vantongerloo.

The avant-garde collection was given as a deposit to the Miejskie Muzeum Historii i Sztuki im. Juliana i Kazimierza Bartoszewiczów [Julian and Kazimierz Bartoszewicz Public Museum of History and Art], established 1930 at Plac Wolności 1, and first shown to the public in 1931 in two rooms.

After 2nd World War, in 1948, the museum changed its place of residence for one of the palaces of the Poznański’s family – at Więckowskiego St. 36, which is one of its venues until today. In 1950 it was accepted by the state and gained its current name: Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź.

Close relation of the museum with artists bore fruit with numerous donations also after the war. In 1945 a widow after Karol Hiller donated legacy of this great artist. In the same year Władysław Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro donated their artistic output. In 1957, thanks to the mediation of acting in Paris Denise René, Michel Seuphor, Jan Brzękowski, Edouard Jaguer and Jerzy Kujawski, works of various artistic trends (inter alia surrealism) and international avant-garde were acquired. In 1975 Mateusz Grabowski, the owner of the London Gallery, donated 230 works of the most distinguished representatives of the young British art to the Muzeum Sztuki. 1981 is in turn a time of another very important event for the museum: visit of Joseph Beuys and his donation of a part of his Archive, containing over one thousand works. It was an action Polentransport 1981. In the same year NSZZ “Solidarność” gave as a permanent deposit a collection of works donated by participants of the international artistic event Construction in Process to the Muzeum Sztuki. In 1983 American artists donated a collection of their works to the Łódź musuem, collected as a result of Échange entre artistes 1931–1982, Pologne-USA action initiated by Henryk Stażewski, Anka Ptaszkowska, Pontus Hulten and Foksal Gallery in Warsaw on the occasion of the 50-years anniversary of the “a.r.” group.

The collection has been continuously extended until today. Now it is shown in the ms2 – revitalized and renovated building of the XIX-century weaving mill, opened to the public 20th November 2008. Muzeum Sztuki has found its new way to work with its collection and tradition. The change covers not only the location, but also the manner of presentation of the collection. The new layout replaces traditional chronological order with the order of 4 ideas – on one hand crucial for modern culture and on the other ones that are contained in the original collection from 1931. Therefore the exhibition divides the whole collection into four areas, described with triadic notions: ‘body, trauma, prosthesis’, ‘construction, utopia, politicization’, ‘eye, image, reality’ and ‘object, fetish, phantasm’.

As a result the works exhibited in the ms2 don’t represent any longer a given art movement, but they communicate messages important for the viewers today. The objective is still to refresh the potential accumulated in the work of art to enrich the viewer’s experience of the present reality, to create an ‘event’ in which the work of art, resonating with the thoughts and emotions of the viewer, is brought back to life.

A former museum’s building, hosting the collection for 50 years, now called ms, is presently a venue for experimental work with contemporary art: temporary exhibitions, performances, workshops, screenings. But there’s still a link left with the Muzeum Sztuki tradition: a Neoplastic Room designed by Wladyslaw Strzeminski in 1948 to serve as an exhibition space for “a.r.” group and constructivist artists. Now the works are exhibited in ms2 and the Neoplastic Room is a starting point for new projects developed in close relation to it by such artists like Daniel Buren or Liam Gillick. An avant-garde tradition is being still reintrpretated, discussed and this way – kept present.

The new department of the Museum of Art - ms² opened its premises on 20th November 2008. The new ArtZone is placed in the revitalized “high weaving mill” - in the factory complex built by Izrael Poznański. The permanent exhibition is presented on the area of 3000 m² and it is located on three floors of the building. Ms² hosts one of the richest collections of 20th and 21st century art in Europe, mostly the experimental art. The heart of the collection is the International Collection of Modern Art of the “a.r.” group. It is a phenomenon on a global scale, as it has been initiated by the artists themselves and formed as a result of a joint effort to act beyond and against any boundaries. Collection of Modern Art is a cross-section of the avant-garde trends and tendencies of the late 1920’s, with a unique presentation of abstractionists such as Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Theo van Doesburg, Jean Gorin, Jean Helion, Vilmos Huszar, Henryk Stażewski and Georges Vantongerloo. However, it also exhibits Cubism (Fernand Léger, Louis Marcoussis), Futurism (Enrico Prampolini), Dadaism (Kurt Schwitters), Surrealism (Max Ernst, Kurt Seligmann), Formism (Leon Chwistek, Tytus Czyżewski), “Pure Form” (Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz), Constructivism (Aleksander Rafałowski, Andrzej Pronaszko) or Unism (Władysław Strzemiński). In ms² we can see avant-garde works from a new perspective. The ms2 exhibition presents an artwork not only as a memento of the elapsed time, but also as an occurrence and a statement that is important for us today.