The ways in which media forces women into gender roles collide with fascist ideology in artist Alvaro Carmona‘s re-edit of Cosmopolitan’s Spanish January 2016 issue. His hack? Replacing every single word with text from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
The article “How to fix your make-up after you cry” became a terminus quo for the Spanish conceptual artist. The header, which looked like advice for thousands of readers, shocked Carmona and inspired him to start the project Mein Kampf.
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The result is a 172-page magazine where all the glamor edicts have been replaced by actual passages from Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto. Carmona overcame a very meticulous process to create it, changing every single word starting from the header, to the words on a label in a corner of a tiny picture, using the same color, font, format, and length. If you’re so inclined (and can read German), you end up with a very peculiar read.
Carmona’s project seeks to draw attention to the potentially dangerous values that magazines plant in women’s minds, influencing their core identities from extremely young ages. He wants people to see the incredible amount of indoctrination women are subconsciously exposed to every day. “I just want it to be seen by as many people as possible, women and men,” Carmona says. “I hope it’ll make them think about the danger of letting the media in general, and these magazines in particular, dictate what the values of women should be.”
Click here to read more about Alvaro Carmona’s Mein Kampf.
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