Tomorrow in SF: Laura Albert (aka J.T. LeRoy) at ATA Gallery
An art installation inspired by the saga of J.T. LeRoy (Sarah, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things)
Discussion with Laura Albert and Jasmin Lim moderated by Chuck Mobley
Wednesday August 24th, 7pm
ATA Artists Television Access
992 Valencia Street
In association with Modern Times Book Collective
Untitled (Persona Case Study), Window Installation at ATA
Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco’s artist-run, experimental-media arts gallery, is presenting a window installation by artist Jasmin Lim for the month of August.
Lim, who has shown her work at San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Kearny Street Workshop, and Partisan Gallery, creates sculptural photographs that explore the mechanics of perception and the ways the mind distorts and obscures raw visual information to conceptualize the world. Her work seeks to draw attention to this mediated experience.
This installation is a sample case study of the saga of JT LeRoy, homeless youth turned author, who was eventually revealed to be a persona created by writer Laura Albert. JT was an avatar with a dual purpose: to articulate the traumas she could not directly express, and to interface with the public, which she could not personally engage. Since Laura’s identity was revealed in 2006, she has been repeatedly vilified in the media.
The installation questions the fixed meanings and rigid thinking that limit our perception, comparing Laura’s artistic gesture to a variable in a complex, unresolved algorithm. It combines texts with images directly connected to Laura/JT, and positions them beside other social commentaries on the construction of identity and the nature of truth.
In conjunction with this installation is a personal appearance by Laura Albert, who will join Jasmin Lim for a discussion moderated by SF Camerwork curator, Chuck Mobley, at ATA on Thursday, August 24 at 7 PM.
For more information, contact ATA Artists Television Access, 992
Valencia Street; 415-824-3890; www.atasite.org.
