Hajnal Németh

Crystal Clear Propaganda - The Transparent Method

13 posters (size A2, A1, A0), 21 protection helmets in red spotlight, stereo audio installation, 2009

The work is constructed of a central sound installation accompanied by photographs and posters. The exhibition space is transformed into a space of political propaganda, where the agitating effect of music, flamboyant colours, pathetic poses and provocative sentences is immediately debunked: the 6 different versions of the Marseillaise emanating from the speakers are all off-key and the lyrics that sound French are in fact mostly out-and-out nonsense, and the texts on the emblematic posters of movements encourage spiritual, instead of political, rebellion.Miming the original without actually knowing the tune or the lyrics, the recorded fake Marseillaise versions were sung by the people on the posters: Unfamiliar faces encouraging you to liberate yourself and not the country or the world. The work thus employs the model of political propaganda to make a point about metaphysical revolution involving the individual or ranging beyond the individual.

The example of the revolution, however, is by no means a political statement; on the contrary: it is the parody of political statement through modelling the method of popularization.

Self-serving enthusiasm that has no specific cause can be methodically guided and controlled, because it does not presuppose a transparency and rationalisation of its goals, the paths leading to those goals and the interests underlying them.

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In collaboration with Fufoo Film Berlin and Photo Edition Berlin

Further collaborators : Barbara Antal, Caspar Bódy, Gunther Dietrich, Iris Van Dongen, Hala Faisal, Axel Halling, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Péter Lovas, Diana McCarty, Iringó Réti, Amédé-Dominique Stöckl, Árpád Széll, Mara Traumane, Johannes Weiss, André Ribeiro de Oliveira

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Exhibition view: Műcsarnok - Kunsthalle, Budapest; Modem, Debrecen

Photo: Balázs Glódi, Tamás Gerő