In Proto-Germanic, the root *geban / *giftiz meant “that which has been given,” “a gift,” or “something passed on.” Over the centuries, however, through semantic drift and the evolution of language toward euphemism, the word Gift underwent a transformation. While the shared root has retained a positive connotation in English, in German, used for years as a euphemism for lethal mixtures, it gradually narrowed its meaning to “a deadly dose” and now signifies poison.

A gift may be a source of joy, but also a mechanism of dependency. A “pure” gift seems difficult to imagine in a world where every such gesture carries with it an expectation of reciprocity, gratitude, or symbolic return. Gratitude automatically produces obligation and immediately entangles one in an economy of exchange. Perhaps the most radical gift, understood as the offering of oneself, may operate according to the same logic, generating a responsibility that bears the marks of sacrifice. Desire, and the devotion that follows it, can hardly be considered a disinterested gesture.

Desire may confront us both with fantasy and with lack; it need not be directed toward another person, but toward an object, an idea, or the absolute. It can even lead toward truth and goodness, provided it undergoes proper transformation and purification. According to the belief that relinquishing the ego may open the possibility of happiness through surrender to that which exceeds the individual, in an act of love free from possession.

The works of the artists brought together in the exhibition do not form a unified narrative; rather, they interweave, revealing successive aspects of desire and sacrifice. Their practices guide the viewer through a series of tensions, from the primal impulse, through the gesture of giving to others and its ambivalence, to the moment of purification, sublimation, and the deconstruction of the very idea itself.

Kama Kicińska examines the structure of desire as a multilayered phenomenon, rooted in the body, history, and relations of power. She seeks to capture its tension, fragmentation, and temporality. Here, this drive appears as a primal, wild, even deceptive force, one that can both forge connection and lead to the loss of subjectivity.

Similarly precarious is the balancing on the boundary between care and sacrifice, between devotion to others and self-effacement, which forms the central motif of Zuzanna Mazurek’s oil paintings. The artist highlights the entanglements inherent in giving to others and emphasizes that the key distinction between these two attitudes lies in choice, one not dictated by oppressive obligation or by the perception of women as the titular “gift,” always at others’ disposal.

From the perspective of the “after”, of sublimation and purification, speak Julia Szczerbowska and Julia Bachur. Bachur’s practice, grounded in the theory of the abject, visualizes, without erotic literalness, the trace that desire leaves in matter. Transmission, surrender, loss, and the disintegration of the “self” are here transformed. Her delicate, soft objects reveal that what repels may simultaneously attract, and that beauty may emerge from discomfort. Szczerbowska approaches purification as a quiet, almost imperceptible experience, unfolding through traces of matter altered by fire. A light palette, luminosity, and the repetition of motifs create an atmosphere of apparent calm in which tension is displaced inward. Her works align more closely with a gesture of withdrawal than of transgression, proposing a form of transformation achieved through attention and stillness.

Finally, Amelia Woroszył reverses the logic of desire and of the gaze toward the image itself, proposing enigmatic representations that stand in opposition to “obscenity,” understood as the absolute absence of mystery. The titular “poison” resides in what the image offers the viewer: an impulse toward interpretation that ultimately proves uncertain.

The Gift / Das Gift is an exhibition about the impulses and tensions embedded in human relations; about how that which is given continues to resonate. It asks whether a gift can ever exist outside the structures that inevitably return it to us.

— Marianna Lomza