Piotr Uklanski: Real Nazis

In the fall of 1999, Edition Patrick Frey published Piotr Uklanski's artist book, The Nazis, which quickly went out of print and became a highly coveted cult book. Whereas The Nazis collected stills of actors playing Nazis in various Hollywood movies, Uklanksi's new book, Real Nazis, juxtaposes them with the real thing: Nazi party bigwigs, decorated war heroes and war criminals. Painstakingly culled from a variety of archives, this follow-up compilation superimposes fact upon fiction: the stagey, propagandistic imagery of the Third Reich is mixed in with the Nazi iconography of Hollywood, revealing an uncanny, even spooky, resemblance between the play-acting and real-life exponents of evil. Designed with the same format and production values as its predecessor, Real Nazis asks who are the real Nazis in this picture puzzle? What is a bona fide Nazi? Which pictures are real and which are fake? This hall of mirrors serves as a radical commentary on our alarming current condition, in which the lines between populist and fascistic politics are increasingly blurring. Then as now, Beneath all the insignia and accoutrements of evil lurks the iconography of media kitsch and ridicule. It's all about the power of costumes and the costumes of power, about the glamour of evil, the glistening shine of fake medals made of fake gold.