Inspiring meeting with Ricky Demarco in Edinburgh, who remained as enthusiastic as ever about Romanian art and the great names he worked with during the Iron Curtain years, Paul Neagu, Ion Bitzan, Horia Bernea, Pavel Ilie, and Ovidiu Maitec. I felt privileged listening to his memories about his first trip to Romania in 1968 and his spontaneous affinity with the poetic ideas of Bitzan and Neagu, as well as discussing the major group show Romanian Art Today he presented at the Edinburgh Festival shortly afterwards, in 1971. I left the city thinking of Neagu’s Christmas gift to Ricky, a piece of burnt paper with which one could see the beauty of cosmic dimension, and also of Beuys’s iconic words: “New beginnings are in the offing”… a short but fertile trip.

12 March 2017