Authentic Fake : Authenticity and Authentication

Hite Institute of Art Portland Gallery, Louisville, KY

March to April 2024

“The question of authenticity is a dubious quest.
It reduces our experiences and our syntax into these categories
that could be easily pinned down and when something is categorized,  
I think we lose much of ourselves in that and  
so for me every poem is an opportunity to start over.” 

-Ocean Vuong, Poet, Novelist, Essayist- 

The exhibition questions the modern sanctification of authenticity. No longer believing in objective truths, the postmodern society seeks epistemic grounding on being true to oneself. The categories of authentic-or-fake replaced the binary of true-or-false. Authenticity is a trojan horse for authentication. As an artist of Korean American descent, I'm encouraged to express my “authentic” Korean identity. This encouragement can imply my works will receive recognition as authentic and meaningful only when they embody Korean cultural expression. Authenticity becomes a performance for the sake of authentication. Ironically, authenticity turns into an act of conformity/confirmation, a paradox where you prove yourself by fitting into what society has already defined for you. 

My four bodies of work raise distinct challenges to the essentialist notion of identity. Through diverse forms of art, I encourage participants to explore their multiple, expansive, hybrid and fluid identities 

-Suyun Son-