https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j8J-fxzSkN0esa526Xmc7DaTrbhDCH7BILtfZukm9Ng/edit#

Global Issues: Culture & Identity

The photomontage titled “Abduction of a virgin” by Hannah Hoch presumably works to satirize white western culture and their hypocrisies, whilst yet building an equivalence in the idea of inferiority of females in both cultures. The title placed by the German’s “abduction” initially suggests the critical and judgemental attitude they have towards the original art. Thus, there is a sense of decontextualization as the art was stolen and interpreted completely from a foreigner – as it was placed in an ethnographic museum. The wooden sculpture consists of four figures riding a large animal, the inner figures being females given their exaggerated pointy breasts and the other being males, suggesting a power dynamic between what looks like two guards and two captives. Hoch interestingly replaces one of the female’s head with a white woman’s face – perhaps part of the New Woman movement given the time period -, which is oddly twisted backwards. This evokes a certain absurdity to the piece, which perhaps Hoch intended to mock white western culture by adding what can be rather seen as symbolic of white culture and hybridizing it to an African object, something they have pictured as uncivilized, primitive and weak. This matches the style and more importantly, the purpose of the Dada movement as the photomontage works to ultimately criticize the hypocrisy of white western culture as they themselves have performed such form of “abduction” for hundreds of years during colonization. However, Hoch also seemingly builds an equivalence in the idea of females being objectified and inferior in nature. The fact that, presumably a New Woman(considering the time) has been placed in an environment of control between two men, perhaps reflects the idea of German New women being forced back into their place of culture by men despite the empowering movement.