"For me, it is difficult to reach art from politics. You can do a lot without money, just with a little creativity and a point of support" said José Antonio Sistiaga, one of the founders of group Gaur, at the University of Navarra last Friday, October 28. With the discussion paper 'Creative freedom and despotic power', the Basque artist closed the symposium Gaur: Fifty Yearsorganized by the Chair of language and Basque Culture.

This meeting was intended to commemorate the history of group made up of the artists Jorge Oteiza, Eduardo Chillida, Néstor Basterretxea, Remigio Mendiburu, Amable Arias, Rafael Ruiz Balerdi, José Antonio Sistiaga and José Luis Zumeta.

The painter spoke at the University of Navarra Museum about the origins of Gaur: "It was not a dream. I was awake and thought of something that became a reality". Likewise, he told that the group of artists started the movement but then the public was projected in what they were doing. "Someone is always interested in art. We used to take a lot contact with doctors and architects, for example," he recalled. Likewise, about the dissolution of group, Sistiaga assured that "there was no time for more and less among us, each one did what he could."

For his part, Professor Gabriel Insausti, director of the symposium, explained that Gaur means "unity in plurality", since at least three different generations coexist in it and, in reality, it is a sum of individualities. "The appearance of group was a decisive event in the History of modern Basque art and a revulsive in the social panorama of the sixties," he said.

The conference analyzed the meaning of Gaur in the context of the late Franco regime and the career of its members, as well as its particular relationship with the Navarrese artists around group Danok.

Organized at partnership with the Museum of the academic center and the Government of Navarre, they featured speakers such as the painter Javier Balda or the poet Juan Manuel Bonet, director of the high school Cervantes in Paris. The events ended with a performance by the group Iruñako Duguna Taldea.