COURAGE

Свързване на колекции

In the film, the actor roams the city and uses the opportunity to overcome various obstacles that lie before him (walls, fences...). He walks aimlessly. Speed walking, the artist passes though various surroundings. In motion, he marks his own individual path of movement through the city. He jumps across obstacles, representing a symbolic act of defiance and appropriation of the micro-space, of the free subject. This work is a statement on the intertwining of art and an everyday action – walking. In his works, Neša Paripović creates an intimate atmosphere. He did not perform in public. Movement, like the actor's roaming, represents deviation from a stable place in society. The actor conquers the public space precisely through his own private space of action. Rhythmicality is immanent in the work as the rhythmic film shots match the motion of the artist.

The poem’s original title was Szaltószabadság, a neologism difficult to translate (roughly, “Summersault Freedom”). It means “the freedom of flipping in the air,” but it also echoes the word sajtószabadság, which means “freedom of the press.” When the journal Mozgó Világ was launched by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth Organization (KISZ) in December 1975, Nagy’s poem was to appear in the first issue with its original title. However, the censors demanded that it be changed: editor Miklós Veress and the poet choose a line from the poet referring to Korbut.

A stage was set up every summer on the main square of the city, where theatre performances were held in the evenings. During the day, the stage lay abandoned. They thought it would be an ideal location, and so they agreed the evening before that they would recite poems (to nalaja is an invented term meaning to speak flawlessly based on a free association of ideas, a kind of improvised surreal rap) while playing on the flute and drum and presenting funny objects to tourists.

They went to the site at 3 pm and performed the action. At the end, a local policeman came and started to check IDs, so tourists and the participants stood around him. A voluntary policeman from a distance misunderstood the situation and called for more police units. It became a major raid, and everyone was taken to the police station, including friends and journalists who just happened to be present.

The participants were suspected of being part of an “organized conspiracy” (they learned this only years later), since during searches of their homes the police found the guestbook of an open air exhibition with some 400 addresses of visitors (who voluntarily gave their addresses in order to be sent invitations for the next exhibition), including East German and Czech citizens.

It took a long time to check all the names, so the participants were kept in custody for six months. After a six day trial at the City Hall they were charged with having “deliberately and in unison disturbed the peace.” They were sentenced to serve precisely the amount of time they had already been held in custody, with the exception of one journalist, who was also accused of having assaulted an officer.

Only a few photographs of the event remained by favor of György Hegedűs, a young photojournalist who was also present at that ominous sunday afternoon.