‘Authenticity’ is an extreme important word in art area. It has defined as ‘Of undisputed origin and not a copy; genuine’ by oxford dictionaries. The word authenticity is the state of something being authentic, or legitimate and true. Authenticity is important when the value of something is dependent on where it came from or how it was made.

When  artists do some works, they need to do lots of research. For example, they will find some paintings and works which created by famous artists and search on the website to find some idea which come from pubic. Therefore, unauthenticity may unavoidable for their works. Worse still, in the world, there are more than 7 billion people so we hardly create a truly authentic idea and work. Some amazing ideas which you think it only discover by yourself but it may has been created in many years ago. So in my opinion, as a designer I cannot and impossible give up to research and reference some excellent works. Besides I cannot avoid others have same idea as me. But I think that authenticity means that the sense of the work is belong you including the style, mark and emotion. The most important elements is emotion because people may have same idea and work, and cannot have the same emotion which is unique. As Theo van Doesberg (Croation Review 1931) stated, ‘The new artist does not imitate, he creates. In addition, in contemporary society designer need to do more work to solve problem than to go after truly authentic.

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-van-doesburg-theo.htm