Lăzarea 40 - A selection from the collection of the Lăzarea Artists' Colony

A major national exhibition will open on 20 May from 18:00 at the Szekler Museum in Ciuc, offering an insight into the 40 years of the Lăzarea Artists' Colony. The exhibition, organised in the framework of the XI Harghita County Days, features more than 100 works by emblematic figures of the camp and a selection of works by a number of well-known and renowned artists from Hungary and abroad.

The presentation is chronological, allowing the various images of Lăzarea to emerge in their historical context, which, however, do not stand alone but together represent all that we call the art camp of Lăzarea . We are the guests of an exhibition that is attuned to Lăzarea , to the castle, to forty years, where past and present, tradition and innovation are brought together in a spirit of openness and a demand for contemporaryity.

In 2014, the Lăzarea Artists' Colony celebrated its 40th anniversary. To celebrate this, the cultural institution that runs the site paid tribute with a series of camps, exhibitions and festive events, albeit filled with emptiness due to the conditions around the castle. The present exhibition is the final event in a series of events to mark the 40th anniversary of the Artists' Colony, which also marks a new beginning. After Miercurea Ciuc, the exhibition will travel around the country and will be shown at important venues in Hungary and abroad.

It will be an insight into the creative work of friendship, which was conceived more than forty years ago by the Szekler artists, now known as the "grand old men", and which has made Lăzarea one of the most important artistic centres in the country, while their activities have become inseparable from the life of the castle. This brilliant history, without a castle, is now in a period of crisis, but the 40th anniversary is also a milestone, since the absence of a castle has made it all the more urgent to present the importance and priceless values of the art colony through exhibitions such as the one in Miercurea Ciuc, which will provide an insight into the characteristic features of the art colony and the artistic trends represented.

The art that has been withdrawn from the official places of art, from galleries and museums, is now being brought back to the exhibition spaces for a few weeks, so that it can be made available to the public, condensed and compressed, placed in a space and time.