Play Life Illusion - the retrospective in book form refers to the title of a performance which Xanti Schawinsky developed in 1936 with students at Black Mountain College. The Swiss artist who worked at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau emigrated in the 1930s via Italy to the United States. The volume assembles autobiographical texts and letters regarding the life's work of the multimedia artist and designer.

During his time at the Bauhaus Xanti Schawinsky learned that it is possible to be both an artist and a designer at the same time if your passion for and joy in experimentation are simply big enough. And so he repeatedly re-invented himself as a stage and exhibition designer, painter and graphic artist, teacher and photographer. He made friends, allies and colleagues who included not only Bauhaus artists like Walter Gropius and Herbert Bayer but also avant-garde artists like Marcel Duchamp. Texts, accompanying explanations and lively illustrations recreate his life and times.