Despite the best efforts of historians and other lovers of truth, the art of biography is always slippery and subjective. It's also the ideal launch pad for a postmodern meditation like The Strange Case of T.L., a collaboration between New York art critic/curator, Carlo McCormick, and California artist, Tony Labat. Their book, ostensibly a psychological portrait of Labat, both flips off and flips over traditional notions of biography and identity.

As narrator, McCormick assumes the role of a psychoanalyst with expertise in "the aesthetics of delusion." Thus equipped, he tackles the case of one "T.L.," a compulsive liar who may or may not be suffering from a multiple personality disorder ... and whose initials just happen to coincide with Tony Labat's.

The text consists of two alternating voices. McCormick makes clinical observations on the mental state of his "patient," while T.L., his words apparently transcribed from psychoanalytic interviews, describes vignettes from his own life. These cryptic snippets of text are set into a colorful and intriguing stream of photographs, all of which purport to be candid snapshots of T.L., from early childhood to middle age.

The result is more than merely a narrated photo album. Out of this quick stew of imagery - the clinical and confessional voices, and T.L.'s seedy, hard-luck face glancing up from the page - a genuine and eerily sympathetic character emerges. We know that T.L. is a Cuban immigrant, and we see that he is a dirty, boastful, and violent man. Beyond that, nothing is certain. He may lead a life of bestiality, cocaine dealing, political terrorism, and high-fashion retail - or he may just be a wild liar. (Whether or not T.L., like Tony Labat, is a prominent performance video artist and professor in the New Genres department of the San Francisco Art Institute is a question never answered or even asked.)