The exposition planned for the 90th anniversary of Barabás Miklós Guild’s first introduction was postponed by the pandemic. Now, a year later, the first introduction still came together in Miercurea Ciuc.

Why are anniversaries important to us? Perhaps because, during these times, time’s gates open, time travelling seems possible, and only during these times may we look both forward and backward in time. This is important to us, so we can orient ourselves in time.

The Guild in Cluj-Napoca, starting from the halls of Teleki Palace on Farkas street (now Mihail Kogălniceanu), has already come a really long way. The first large-scale exhibition in Transylvania was organized in the newly built Art Gallery in Cluj-Napoca, in 1943. In the preface to the catalog at the time, archeologist László Gyula, introducing the guild, writes the following: “The purpose of the Barabás Miklós Guild to unite all major artists of Transylvania, it has already mostly come true.” This was true then, and my beliefs are that it is still just as true, but only because of extraordinary efforts. Since then, a World War happened, a forced ceasefire, a reorganization in 1994, a re-introduction, a national exhibition in Târgu Mureş, an inauguration of the headquarters in 2005, a national exhibition in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe), a national exhibition in Cluj-Napoca, and now we are here, in the city of Nagy Imre, once vice president of the guild.

Looking ahead is a little more cumbersome. In this case we would need a prophet. There is no fact or date we could hold on to, we can solely count on our dreams, plans, ideas. Still, it feels like the momentum and the willingness that encouraged Károly Kós and Sándor Szolnay to create is still smoldering inside the guild. We keep on working.