Each of the four digital photo-collages is composed of three elements; the first constituent, taken from a set of Hugo Boss advertisements for the autumn and winter collection 1998-99, demonstrates amongst other things, a leather coat that closely resembles a World War II German Luftwaffe overcoat. The second is a collection of Spanish postcards from the Franco era displaying simplistic drawings of couples, doll-like girls with uniformed boy soldiers. The last of the three components are photographic self-portraits (of Tanya Ury) from 1996, naked and posing with an original full-length, Nazi leather Luftwaffe coat.

The revelations of the Boss Nazi origins in 1997 were obviously bad press for Hugo Boss AG. They preferred to be seen in a more charitable light and believed correctly that this would be possible, for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation had, as early as 1996, already administered a biennial international art award of $50,000 in the name of Hugo Boss.

Tanya Ury