Propaganda meets art

Visitors will hardly recognize the Kunstverein ("Art Association") from 30 April to 6 June 2010: for this period the exhibition space in Hansastraße will be transformed into an arena of political propaganda. The Hungarian artist Hajnal Németh shows the hollowness of political propaganda with her 2009 installation "Crystal Clear Propaganda – The Transparent Method".

We’re against it! But against what? In her installation Hajnal Németh unmasks political rhetoric.
Photo: Hajnal Németh

The visitor will be confronted with posters which use all methods from the arsenal of party political propaganda: bright colours, easily remembered shapes, pithy slogans and emotive poses. The Marseillaise will sound from loudspeakers; but nonsensical onomatopoeic words have been set to the tune of the revolutionary anthem, of which many versions have been recorded and mixed together. The singers of the various versions appear on posters with bizarre slogans such as “I love you executed!”, "Stop eating dead goat!" or simply "Meeeeee!".

Hajnal Németh deconstructs political rhetoric by emptying it of content and making its form transparent. The fragments of this artistic unity are now commonly available as a material, but it is not used in an emancipatory or participatory way, but as an “image”, a fetish for an individual’s self-promotion.

The exhibition is part of the festival "scene: hungary in nrw".