Disguise and Deception

Disguise and Deception takes its title from the German army division "Tarnen und Täuschen," a special unit that researches and fabricates camouflage technology and decoy weaponry, from inflatable tanks and vehicles to imitation land mines. The unit descends from a comparable division of the East German National People's Army that continued its work after German reunification. Schwarzlose photographs this world of manufactured deception and turns it into a meditation on the image itself, on the relationship between originals and copies, and on the overlap between military and artistic strategies of illusion. The book, designed by Gael Paccard with 20 gatefold pages, includes an essay by Johan Frederik Hartle situating the photographs against the aesthetics-ideology relationship the unit's own work embodies. It was Schwarzlose's first publication with Kodoji Press and was accompanied by a related exhibition and symposium at Foam, Amsterdam.