Mészáros Júlia, N.: 35 éves a Győri Művésztelep. Történeti áttekintés, művek, életrajzi adatok, beszámoló a jubileumi találkozóról - Győri művészettörténet 4. (Győr, 2003)
Memorandum: Alkotótelepek, szimpóziumok konferenciája, Pécs, 2002. november 14-15.
MEMORANDUM Conference of Artists’ Colonies and Symposia, Pécs, 14-15. 11. 2002 I. The movement of artists symposia has been - since 1896, foundation of Nagybánya - our unbroken national cultural tradition. Centres has been established, which have also operated on state initiative, through the agency of the local government of the receiving settlements, under the auspices of the local civil society. They have played a decisive role in the history and development of Hungarian visual culture, as it has been proven by history of art heaps of times. The artists’ symposia survived the post-war political trasformation, new symposia were established and began to develop spectacularly in the sixties, with the assent of the national public authority but already on the initiative and under the auspices of local cultural policy, the direct results of this can be experienced up to the present day. In the often extremely valuable monuments suitable for artistic activity, in the workshops of new type and newly built workshops - with expensive infrastructure and equipment park - unique collections were founded, representing the results of the research of the various most important media of contemporary Hungarian and international art. The leading personalities of the Hungarian artistic world took part in the work of the symposia from the very outset. A strongly marked part of the most notable oeuvres - in several media - was conceived in this inspiring melieu and also realized with the help of the means of the artists’ symposia. After the political transition, the transformation of the local administration, however, the numerous temporary community workshops as well as the smaller number of artists’ symposia working continuously, possessing their own real estates - like many other institutions of relatively special function, decisive value also for the future - passed into the proprietorship and maintenance of local governments in such a manner that the local cultural policy could not provide the resources guaranteed before to finance their operation in the usual way. In the last ten years, the local governments has at least striven to preserve this intellectual and material capital, heritage, collections all the same. The strategies of survival and its local resources have, however, been exhausted by now. The law on the local governments has made the financing of artists’ symposia a „voluntary task” for the political bodies. As a consequence of this, less and less money has been given for this purpose, the earlier flourishing institutions have become public utility companies of doubtful future, institutions growing impoverished, devoted to destruction. The illusions connected with the change of regime, the direct supports hoped for from the participants of the market and the strengthening civil society have 333
