Japanese visual artist Akimitsu Tamawake has won the Grand Prize of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland. The G9 exhibition in Sfântu Gheorghe opened on 2 October at the Transylvanian Art Centre, where the biennial’s awards were also presented. This year’s open call attracted unprecedented international interest: 1,034 artists from 71 countries submitted a total of 2,195 works.

The opening in Sfântu Gheorghe also served as the awards ceremony of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland. Alongside representatives of the arts and cultural sector, the event was attended by the heads of the organizing and partner institutions, representatives of the universities and organizations offering the awards, as well as several of this year’s prize-winning artists.

The guests were welcomed by Beáta Bordás, director of the Transylvanian Art Centre. The biennial was organized through the cooperation of Covasna, Harghita and Mureș counties, with several cultural and art institutions from Szeklerland contributing as professional partners.

On behalf of the host county, the audience was welcomed by Sándor Tamás, President of Covasna County Council. In his speech, he reflected on the flood of images that defines contemporary visual culture. While machines and algorithms generate and discard enormous quantities of images every second, graphic art continues to demand time, attention, experimentation and conscious artistic decisions.

“We have gathered here tonight to honour people who dared to stop amid this flood and who did not simply produce images, but created them,” he said.

In this context, Sándor Tamás described graphic art not merely as a technique, but as a form of resistance to the rapidly consumed stream of images surrounding us. He also recalled one of the biennial’s original objectives: to create, through the cooperation of Covasna, Harghita and Mureș counties, an event capable of connecting Szeklerland to the international circulation of contemporary visual culture.

“Tonight, Szeklerland is on the international map of contemporary graphic art. We did not put it there ourselves – more than a thousand artists from 71 countries have printed it onto that map,” said Sándor Tamás.

Hunor Kelemen, President of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, recalled being present at the launch of the Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland in 2010 and expressed his pleasure that, sixteen years later, the initiative remains alive, continues to evolve and inspires the creation of new works.

“Through the biennial, Covasna, Harghita and Mureș counties work together in an exemplary way to support artistic freedom, something I consider extremely important. Artists should be free to create and should have the courage to show us how they see the world. Our task is to support them in every way we can,” said Hunor Kelemen, thanking the artists for their intellectual courage and the organisers for their perseverance.

Representing the Consulate General of Hungary in Miercurea Ciuc, Foreign Economic Attaché Fanni Csuzy addressed the audience and spoke about the long-standing cooperation between the Consulate General and the biennial, emphasising the bridge-building role shared by art and diplomacy. While diplomacy creates connections between nations, communities and individuals, she noted, art is capable of doing the same on a deeper level, often without words. She highlighted that the Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland has developed into an international meeting point where artists from different countries and cultural backgrounds can connect with one another.

From the Cooperation of Three Counties to an International Biennial

From the outset, the Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland has been built on cooperation between the three counties of Szeklerland. Visual artist Zsolt Siklódi from Mureș County, together with the leaders of cultural institutions in Harghita and Covasna counties, played a decisive role in establishing the event. Over its nine editions, the initiative has developed into a contemporary graphic art event with an increasingly extensive international network.

Barna Botond Bíró, President of Harghita County Council, highlighted the importance of cooperation and collective action among the three counties of Szeklerland. He stressed that despite increasingly limited financial resources, Covasna, Harghita and Mureș counties continue to consider support for culture, and contemporary visual art in particular, a priority.

“Despite our local and regional differences, our strength lies in standing together. When we work together and plan our future jointly, our achievements can earn recognition and respect at international level as well,” he said.

Ferenc Péter, President of Mureș County Council, was unable to attend the event in person due to other commitments. His message was delivered by art historian Erika Oniga, museologist at the Art Department of the Mureș County Museum.

Taking this year’s biennial theme, DISTORTION, as his starting point, Ferenc Péter reflected on art’s ability to reshape the way we see the world. A work of art, he noted, can often reveal something new precisely by shifting, magnifying or rearranging what we thought was familiar. Through such transformations, emotions, tensions and questions that were always present in the familiar image can become visible for the first time.

“This is one of the great gifts of art. It can give new form to our experiences and help us understand something about the world, about one another or about ourselves that we had previously been unable to put into words,” Ferenc Péter wrote in his message.

Distortion as an Opportunity to Reinterpret Reality

The professional concept of the 9th Székely Land Graphic Art Biennial was presented by visual artist and biennial curator Apor S. Ferenc. This year’s central theme, DISTORTION, opened up a wide range of interpretations, from physical deformation and psychological shifts to distortions of values and metaphorical transformations.

He emphasised that “in contemporary graphic art, distortion is not merely a formal or geometric deformation. It is a complex means of expression through which artists can reflect on social experiences, questions of identity and memory, transformations of the body and nature, and the uncertainties of our time.”

In this sense, the curator explained, distortion is not an end state but a process – an opportunity to reinterpret perception, thought and our relationship with reality.

Art historian Eszter Túros reflected on the works submitted and selected for exhibition in the ninth edition. She noted that over the years, the Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland has become an internationally recognized professional event, offering a broad overview of changing trends in contemporary graphic art.

She pointed out that this year’s theme of DISTORTION connects an exceptionally diverse range of works, both technically and conceptually, while leaving ample room for individual interpretation. The exhibited works explore subjects ranging from identity and the human body to the social and natural environment, as well as more abstract and self-reflective questions. At the same time, they demonstrate the diversity of traditional, digital and experimental graphic techniques.

Akimitsu Tamawake Wins the G9 Grand Prize

Following the opening, the awards of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland were presented. The Grand Prize, worth €3,000, offered by Covasna County Council and the School of Arts and Crafts in Sfântu Gheorghe, was awarded to Japanese artist Akimitsu Tamawake for his work Seed.

Tamawake received the award in person and thanked everyone involved in organising the biennial. He also recalled the moment he learned that he had won: he was on a flight in July when he received the news. It came as such a surprise that he jumped up with joy and, as he recalled, quietly began to cry.

The Japanese artist also spoke about his creative approach. His work draws strongly on his interest in ancient cultures and history, Japanese picture scrolls, Buddhist art, and Chinese and Korean artistic traditions. Storytelling, he explained, is particularly important to him: he believes a work can hold the viewer’s attention over time when it allows them to imagine both a past and a future.

Ten Awards, One International Community of Artists

In addition to the Grand Prize, nine other professional awards were presented:

• The Nagy Imre Award, offered by Harghita County Council, went to Hungarian artist Péter Jónás for his woodcut Szigetvár.
• The Plugor Sándor Award, offered by Covasna County Council, was awarded to Canadian artist Françoise Legris for her lithograph series Carlos, Héléne, Michael.
• The Nagy Pál Award, offered by Mureș County Council, went to Polish artist Szymon Prandzioch for The Cloud of Unknowing and Plan Your Rest.
• The Lăzarea Artists’ Colony Award was presented to Romanian artist Diana Drăgan-Chirilă for Topografii liminale 2.
• The Visual Arts Award of Eszterházy Károly University went to Polish artist Henryk Krolikowski for Us.
• The Partium Award was presented to Romanian graphic artist Réka Nagy for Csapda II.
• The Award of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts went to Polish artist Malgorzata Jozefowicz for Don’t Forget Us.
• The Award of the MAMŰ Society Cultural Association was presented to Hungarian visual artist Laura Laviv for Persecution.
• The Pulzus Art Colony Award went to Hungarian artist Flóra Toldi for Torzul I–II–III.

The awards ceremony was made particularly memorable by the fact that almost all of the prize-winning artists were present in Sfântu Gheorghe. The event therefore became not only a celebration of the artworks themselves, but also a meeting place for the artists behind them, bringing together creators from different countries and cultural backgrounds.

The Sfântu Gheorghe exhibition of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland will remain open to visitors at the Transylvanian Art Centre until the end of November.

The Sfântu Gheorghe programme of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland began on 1 October with Distinguishing Marks, a solo exhibition by Italian graphic artist Marco Trentin, Grand Prize winner of the 8th edition of the Biennial. Hosted at the Arcaded House, the exhibition explores questions of identity, recognition and identification, while also reflecting on the relationship between the individual and external systems of power.

The title of the exhibition draws its conceptual basis from the practices of personal identification and recognition. It refers to the distinctive features by which a person can be identified and which may be recorded in official registers and identity documents. Taking these administrative and bureaucratic categories as his starting point, Trentin examines the paradox inherent in the attempt to record and describe identity.

In his works, the complex and ever-changing nature of the individual is confronted with the reductive logic of identification, which reduces personality to a limited set of distinctive, cataloguable characteristics. Through this tension, the artist asks how individual features become evidence of identity and how the need for recognition and identification transforms our perception of a person.

The opening was hosted by Mihály Vargha, sculptor and director of the Szekler National Museum, who welcomed Marco Trentin and the audience. In his remarks, he drew attention to the striking relevance of the exhibition. In his view, the questions raised by the works resonate directly with contemporary reality and acquire particular force when considered in the context of events unfolding in today’s world.

Mihály Vargha also reflected on the development of the Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland over the years. He noted that the event’s reputation and professional standing have continued to grow from one edition to the next, a development reflected not only in increasing international interest in the Biennial but also in the evolution of its artistic and organisational processes.

The exhibition was opened by Dr Iréne Kányádi, art historian, who interpreted the works in the context of the systems of surveillance, administration and social control that increasingly shape contemporary identity. She pointed out that one of the central questions in Trentin’s work is what it means to be catalogued in an age of algorithmic tracking, digital footprints and constant surveillance, how personal identity can be preserved, and what possibilities remain for individual resistance.

One of the exhibition’s recurring motifs is the human body, which appears in Trentin’s works both as a bearer of identity and as a surface that can be measured, classified and recorded by external systems. Scars, birthmarks, height and other distinguishing features thus move beyond the everyday practice of identification. In these works, such signs become part of the relationship between the individual and power, between personal freedom and institutionalised control.

Iréne Kányádi also drew attention to war and violence as recurring themes in Trentin’s work. His woodcuts depict weapons, tanks, soldiers, ruined buildings and figures of authority, creating a visual world shaped by conflict. Alongside these expressive and at times chaotic compositions, personal portraits also appear, contrasting individual sensitivity and complexity with the impersonality of war and administrative systems.

At the same time, the body also contains the possibility of resistance in the artist’s thinking. As Trentin puts it, “we are the bulwark against the complex mechanisms that we ourselves construct”, while the body and our own perception of reality enable us to create personal realities.

The conceptual complexity of the exhibition is further reinforced by Trentin’s choice of techniques. By placing traditional woodcut alongside digital inkjet printing, he brings two distinct visual worlds into dialogue. The raw, physical and immediate character of the hand-carved woodblock carries the trace of the artist’s personal presence, while the precision of the digital print evokes the more impersonal world of technological systems. The encounter between the two media thus becomes part of the tension between human, organic existence and the ordering logic of technology.

In Iréne Kányádi’s interpretation, Distinguishing Marks is not only an exhibition about identity, but also a critique of the modern human condition. The possibility of resistance is particularly present in the portrait series Private Identity: while external systems may record and quantify certain human characteristics, the full complexity of personal identity can never be entirely contained within categories.

According to the art historian, Trentin’s works do not allow the viewer to remain a passive observer. Instead, they encourage us to question our own position: how much of ourselves we surrender to the systems operating around us, what we are able to preserve of our personal identity, and how we choose to respond to social injustice.

At the end of the opening, Marco Trentin also addressed the audience. The Italian graphic artist expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to return to the Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland with a solo exhibition as the Grand Prize winner of the previous edition. He also spoke briefly about the exhibition and the ideas underlying the works on display.

Distinguishing Marks will remain on view at the Arcaded House in Sfântu Gheorghe until 29 October.

The programme of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland continues in Sfântu Gheorghe on 2 October. At 6 p.m., the Biennial’s main Sfântu Gheorghe exhibition will open at the Transylvanian Art Centre, where the G9 Award Ceremony will also take place.

The programme of the Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland continued in Miercurea Ciuc on 30 September with the opening of two exhibitions. At the Szekler Museum of Ciuc, the first event was the opening of One and Multiple, an exhibition by the Graphic Art Department of the University of Art and Design in Cluj Napoca, followed by the the official Miercurea Ciuc opening of the biennial. This G9 exhibition brought together works by 126 artists from 28 countries. 

One and Multiple: a century of artistic heritage, graphics across generations

The first event of the afternoon was the opening of One and Multiple, an exhibition by the Graphics Department of the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca. Held during the institution’s centenary year, the exhibition looks back at the traditions of graphic arts education while also highlighting the continuous renewal of the medium.

The exhibition brought together works by former and current graphics professors and students, as well as artists who studied in Cluj-Napoca. The works on display encompass a wide range of graphic techniques, from etching and lithography to woodcut, screen printing and linocut.

The exhibition also reflects on the archive of the university’s Graphics Department, which has been developed since the 1960s. Its significant collection of prints, drawings, posters and photographs not only documents the history of an institution, but also traces the ways in which graphic thinking and image-making have evolved over the past decades.

The exhibition was opened by Ferencz S. Apor, curator of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland, and Dr Cristian Opriș, graphic artist and associate professor.

Artists from 28 countries featured in the Miercurea Ciuc exhibition

Following the opening of One and Multiple, the official Miercurea Ciuc opening of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland also took place at the Szekler Museum of Ciuc.

The central theme of G9 is DISTORTION, a concept that offers a wide range of interpretations, from physical deformation and psychological shifts to distortions of values and metaphorical deviations. Rather than prescribing a single visual direction, the biennial’s open call created a space for reflection in which artists could explore different forms of distortion through their own experiences and visual languages.

The open call attracted unprecedented interest: during the eight-week submission period, 1,034 artists from 71 countries submitted a total of 2,195 works. Following the selection by the professional jury, the Miercurea Ciuc exhibition brought together works by 126 artists from 28 countries.

At the opening, Enikő Sógor, Deputy Mayor of Miercurea Ciuc, spoke about art’s capacity to create dialogue. As she noted, this dialogue takes place simultaneously between artists from different parts of the world and local artists, between different artistic approaches, between the cultural communities of Miercurea Ciuc and Sfântu Gheorghe, and between the artworks and their viewers. She emphasised that genuine dialogue becomes productive when another person’s thoughts continue to resonate within us, generating new ideas or even inspiring action.

Prof. Dr István Erőss, Rector of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, placed the biennial’s development and international role within a broader context. Recalling the beginnings of the event, he pointed out that over the course of its nine editions, an international network of artistic connections has developed around the Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland, within which the event has now found its own place. In his words, a global field of artistic forces has emerged, one in which the biennial has become an active participant and has established itself among international graphic art events.

In his speech, he also emphasised that culture is one of the most important values Szeklerland can present to the world. In this context, he drew attention not only to the biennial’s current professional achievements, but also to its potential long-term impact: what kind of mark the event might leave on the region’s cultural life ten or twenty years from now, and how it might influence the young people encountering the contemporary art presented here today.

The exhibition’s artistic concept was presented by Ferencz S. Apor, curator of the biennial. He emphasised that distortion in contemporary graphic art is not merely a formal deformation, but a complex means of expression. The deliberate transformation of reality can open up new perspectives while encouraging viewers to reconsider familiar frameworks of interpretation.

As he explained, the works on display are not necessarily images of a distorted world. Rather, they explore how the world becomes an image, and how that image changes from the moment we perceive and interpret it to the moment we give it form and pass it on.

“A distorted image does not necessarily distance us from reality. In some cases, it can actually bring us closer to it. It can reveal something that regular, familiar forms conceal,” Ferencz S. Apor emphasised.

Tamás Lénárt, art historian, approached the theme from an art-historical perspective. He pointed out that distortion has played different roles throughout different periods: from the spiritual significance of prehistoric representations and the visual hierarchy of ancient Egypt, through the deliberate manipulation of form in Mannerism, to interpretations of reality in modern and contemporary art.

He also highlighted the distinctive nature of graphic art, which makes the medium particularly well suited to expressing the idea of distortion. By their very nature, graphic processes shape, mediate and rearrange the reality they represent. Cutting, etching, printing, layering and rhythm are all part of the process through which an original image is transformed into a new visual form.

The works on display presented numerous interpretations of distortion. Some explored the human body, identity and the layered nature of personality, while others reflected on the transformation of nature and the built environment or addressed social and ecological issues. Some abstract works broke down the recognisable elements of reality to the point where the reference itself became uncertain.

Tamás Lénárt also addressed art’s capacity to offer a means of action. “Imagination is the final stronghold over which the artist retains eternal power. In the face of existential anxiety about the future, the greatest act of rebellion and the most effective form of activism is creation,” he said.

The Miercurea Ciuc exhibition of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland showcased both the technical diversity of contemporary graphic art and the remarkably broad conceptual field in which the medium operates today. Alongside traditional relief, intaglio and planographic printing techniques, the exhibition included digital prints, mixed-media works combining photography and collage, as well as experimental approaches to graphic art.

Within this context, DISTORTION emerged not as a final state, but as a process: an opportunity to continuously rearrange the ways in which we see, think and relate to reality. Rather than offering a single answer, the works approached the same set of questions from different cultural, social and personal perspectives.

The Miercurea Ciuc exhibition is open to visitors until 29 November at the Szekler Museum of Ciuc.

The programme of the 9th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland continues in Sfântu Gheorghe on 1 October. At 6 p.m., Italian artist Marco Trentin, Grand Prize winner of the 8th Graphic Art Biennial of Szeklerland, will present his solo exhibition Distinguishing Marks at the Arcaded House. On Friday, 2 October, at 6 p.m., the Transylvanian Art Centre will host the opening of the biennial’s Sfântu Gheorghe exhibition and the G9 award ceremony.

The event series is jointly organized by Covasna, Harghita and Mureș counties, the School of Arts and Crafts in Sfântu Gheorghe, the Szekler Museum of Ciuc, the Lăzarea Cultural and Art Centre, the Transylvanian Art Centre and the Mureș County Museum.

We have broken the record once again: the event has received the highest number of applications in its history! During the eight-week application period, 1034 artists from 71 countries submitted a total of 2195 artworks.

Thank you for the incredible interest!