Polka and Skinheads – False Testimony

Polka and Skinheads: Musical Subcultures of the Tiszaeszlár Blood Libel by Dániel Véri

This lecture analyses musical compositions connected to the Tiszaeszlár blood libel case and their social context. The common characteristic of these works – be they polka, folk songs, or rock music – is that the medium efficiently strengthens their message, even if the latter is inherent in the text or the image, but never in the music itself.

The characteristics, differences, even the connections to folk and political antisemitism become evident while examining these works on the blood libel. This lecture presents different subcultures that unite producers and consumers of these musical compositions. It shows how these subcultures have helped and still help a pre-modern superstition to survive.

False Testimony – Versions and Options by Hajnal Németh and Zoltán Kékesi

This event concerns the process of creating the exhibited works: videos, photos and objects. The authors will analyze the possibility of modeling social mechanisms and collective psychological processes from a critical artistic point of view. Does music create the kind of abstraction that is necessary for modeling? What are the minimal formal elements that can be associated with a piece of work in which the content – the story – is borne by text? Can abstraction and minimal formal solutions lift the story from its original and specific context into a more general meaning?

This event is part of a Hungarian-language discussion series that accompanies the exhibition False Testimony by Hajnal Németh and Zoltán Kékesi.