An essay about Laura Albert and JT LeRoy, written in 2012 by Nicole V. Gagné; video © 2019.
In 1889 Oscar Wilde offered a compelling defense for the then-controversial medieval texts that had actually been written by the 18th-century poet Thomas Chatterton: I insisted that his so-called forgeries were merely the result of an artistic desire for perfect representation; that we had no right to quarrel with an artist for the conditions under which he chooses to present his work; and that all Art being to a certain degree a mode of acting, an attempt to realize one’s own personality on some imaginative plane out of reach of the trammeling accidents and limitations of real life, to censure an artist for a forgery was to confuse an ethical with an aesthetical problem. It may seem disconcerting for an essay on Laura Albert to begin by invoking Oscar Wilde: a writer of genius, abandoned by most of his admirers, whose career and life were annihilated by the press and the courts. But the man plainly understood the value of art, and the vital importance of protecting our artists and affording them the widest possible latitude in the creation of their work.
http://jasminlim.com/Nicole-Gagne-on-… More about JT LeRoy and Laura Albert: https://lauraalbert.org/