Dilemma

Is there a link to the alternate persona's work? Love to see it.

I'd find a way to do the interview. It could be fun to keep on impersonating this alter-ego. Would it work over the phone?

I don't know who lonelygirl15 is, but I vote for keeping the secret a secret. It's especially great if the alternate persona is, in fact, a collective. Perhaps the time has come to hire a stand-in to do the interview. Alternately, the persona could demand an online interview. I just see no reason to spill the beans.

a "friend", huh?

Hey I wish it was me... but no.

The author formerly known as JT Leroy is still getting interviews--like in the current issue of the Paris Review--so perhaps drum up some outlandish antics just prior to revealing the alternate personality and then go down in notoriety?

Warhol was always adopting new personas. Doesn't seem to have hurt him either.

Perhaps it's time to don Lucha Libre costumes and make the interview a real show?

if it's a joke, they should let on at some point before it becomes a serious exploitation of trust. the artist could do some real damage to his or her "brand" if people feel manipulated and played instead of cleverly punked. no one, particularly someone who's invested money or time and emotion in support of an artist, likes to be made a fool of.

if the artist has told even one person (which he/she obviously has) the truth will eventually come out. better to have control of when and how it does.

Uhm, how 'bout honesty for a change, what with this infinite landscape of dishonesty that surrounds us daily. What a luxury to be successful twice. Funny - perhaps honesty has become merely a conceptual act.

For what it's worth my suggestion has been to expose the fictional photographer as such but not revealing who the actual photographer is. This way if buyers or dealers invest time and money in the work they know what they are getting into and can, perhaps, have a bit of fun with the mystery. Because the content of the fictional photographer's work is somewhat graphic and at odds with the photographer's known body of work and potentially damaging to his reputation I don't think he should out himself if he doesn't want to. The fact the several photographers have worked on the project I think should be of no consequence if everyone knows the creation is a fiction.

Raul, your suggestion sounds good to me. Honest, but keeps the mystery. Ok, I'm off to have lunch with J.D. Salinger a/k/a Judy Bloom.

Please check out my current exhibition Love, Bytes & Soccer at The Photograhphers Gallery za in Cape Town South Africa.
Heidi