nonfiction is unethical.

[zubird]

so i went to the opening of that photography exhibition, by that girl i went to school with. it was really all right, lots of the pictures were nice and colorful and warm-looking, i drank her soda and ate her tortilla chips and she said, i'm glad you're doing well, you look great. she called the exhibition "Stories for ****: photographing for love

Comments

[rosarojaroja]

But isn't every story we tell ultimately about ourselves?

[zubird]

well, ultimately, yes. and i find that frustrating.
(but i think it's entirely too easy for an artist to be like 'well, everything i say is ultimately about myself,' and then go on to be blatantly confessional at the expense of good art. i suppose i am just tired of confessionalism.)

[verredo]

I understand your frustration with the book about Gypsies, I've had the same thing with a book about South Africa. Pretty much all I've been able to know was that the author got in a fight with her ex-husband over their son, got into a big depression and her maid was a spy...

But I don't know about the exhibition, since as the person above me said, art is mostly about your personal perception of something (at least, that's what I conceive it like at the moment). So maybe what is annoying (to me according to what you've told) isn't exactly that it might be unethical to use other people to talk about herself, but that she does so in such a blatant way? Maybe it's the reason why we usually don't consider a personal diary as art, even if it's been written by a famous and appreciated writer?

[zubird]

you know, i don't know. i think art can be your personal perception, but maybe it can also be something more. i don't mean to suggest that art has to suggest something universal, because that would be silly, but eh.

[wantanfon5]

Isabel Fonseca!

fonsexa

[zubird]

maybe your cousin?

Re: fonsexa

[wantanfon5]

Haha! Strangely enough a bunch of people have called me and offered me copies. I was tempted to pick it up while I was working in the bookstore but I always ended up reading something else.

What do you think of it?