sgb90's blog

David Shields' Reality Hunger: A Manifesto radically adopts the notion of art as appropriation. Among many of his noteworthy provocations, he states: "the citation of sources belongs to the realms of journalism and scholarship, not art. Reality can't be copyrighted" (29). The core of Shields' argument is embedded in the form of his work: a collection of 618 aphorisms, most of which quote (but do not cite) other writers, artists, musicians, and critics. Shields intended to publish the work without attributing credit to these other voices, but "Random House lawyers determined that it was necessary for [him] to provide a complete list of citations," (209) which are contained in the appendix.

The style of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis is striking in that it is so bare, composed solely of black and white images and somewhat caricatured in its simple portrayal of events and individuals. Satrapi employs a purposeful minimalism and understatement in her approach to graphic narrative. This approach emphasizes the degree to which much of the horror and alienation she experienced as a result of growing up in an oppressive and war-torn society cannot be expressed or represented in any form. Instead, the reader is brought into a stark world of black and white that implies what cannot be fully communicated visually or textually.

 (sorornishi.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html)