The symposium of contemporary art in Sângeorz-Băi is already a tradition, confirmed by the fact that in the year 2000 it reached its 10th edition. Its beginnings can be traced back in the late 70s, a "fruitful" decade for the Romanian art. Its regularity became substantial, paradoxically, in an age when such efforts were more and more difficult to be achieved - the'90s. The symposium at Sângeorz-Băi, the soul of which is the artist Maxim Dumitraş - devoted equally as creator, cultural "ferment" and organizer - had both national and international editions. The focus on a single field of the visual arts was replaced, at the recent editions, by the strategy of bringing together several "languages".

Reaching its 10th "anniversary", the cultural event we are discussing here, that took place in the first half of September, was entitled "Art2000- National Symposium of Contemporary Art". The place of the "deed" was represented by the courtyard of the new premises of the Museum of Compared Art in Sângeorz-Băi. We should also take into consideration the charming scenary at the bottom of the mountains around, that inspired some "performances" on paper.

The initiator of the project Maxim Dumitraş did not enunciate any thematic restraints. Moreover, the stimulating context was that of a creative rest meant to facilitate relaxing dialogues of ideas and the harmony of the frames of mind. Certainly, the living together of different personalities is not always easy - the "backstage" of the artistic personality, though, proves unimportant when faced with the benefit of the final results, on the level of aesthetic objectiveness. New techniques were experienced, some authors tried their forces at "languages" which are not their everyday "piece of cake". Most of the works focused in the tridimensional area - pottery and wood, but also mixtures of different materials, the elaboration stages including sometimes the colour drawing. The "laboratory" of the symposium also integrated a didactic dimension workedout by a true Hefaistos of the edition: Ionel Cojocariu oriented towards traditional and "exotic" (raku) techniques of ceramics, addressed to the very young generation / students from Fine Arts Secondary School in Bistrita, co-participants at the symposium).

The external observer of the "stages" took advantage of the "open workshop" represented by the unfolding of an art symposium. One can breathe, together with the protagonists, the atmosphere of the place, absorb conceptual and technical stage revelations, follow the stages of the creative process from project to object, witness the metamorphosis of "commonplace" material all the way to its articulation into the parameters of the Work.

An itinerant exhibition ensures the public access to the result of the "Art 2000" symposium and the works will then go into the patrimony of the Museum of Compared Arts in Sângeorz - Băi. There are works governed by the ludic spirit, there are investigations of structures, dialogues of different materials, approaches to the figurative, abstractions, collisions of the representational with its opposite, geometries of the organic, chromatic particularizations of certain suggestive volumetries, formal solerieties alternating with baroque blasts, the spectacular of the ronde-bosse competes with the subtleties of the relief.

In the end let's name the artists who personalised the 10th edition of the symposium at Sângeorz-Băi:

Adrian Chira (Târgu-Mures), Ionel Coiocariu (Bucuresti), MaximDumitraş (Sângeorz-Bai), Mihai Istudor (Bucuresti), Cristina Lazăr (Bucuresti), Adrian Popovici (Bucuresti), Sava Stoianov (Bucuresti).

Guta Adrian