Artists can make the invisible become visible, but that doesn’t mean they have to. Photographers in particular find it necessary to provide visual confirmation of a chosen moment; in the case of some Pulitzer Prize winners, their captured image has become the official record of an event. But what’s most important is the assumption, particularly in news photographs, that the information presented is authentic. Unfortunately, that trust has been sullied by the biggest Postmodern hat trick of all: fake news.

“Truth is Dead,” 2020, at NeueHouse Hollywood, photos by Alison Jackson.

Although ostensibly providing what she considers images necessary to parse current events, British photographer Alison Jackson seems more concerned with how to exploit a viewer’s fantasy concerning those events. For her NeueHouse exhibition, “Truth is Dead,” she photographed celebrity impersonators in farcical situations: doppelgängers of Lady Diana and other Royals are presented in unflattering poses, as is Donald Trump. But by the authority vested in her as an artist, she is somehow allowed and even praised for, as LA Times contributor Leah Ollman writes, “in the age of fake news …making fakes that become news.” In the same LA Times interview, Jackson claims that, “people are still wanting to believe the image more than anything. It doesn’t matter …that it’s not real.”

“Truth is Dead,” 2020, at NeueHouse Hollywood, photos by Alison Jackson.

Ignoring such an important distinction makes it easier for people to believe that Jackson’s photographs, although not legit documentation, still accurately represent events that happened. After all, people are primed for it, for although they may shout God Save the Queen as loud as the next bloke, they secretly want to see how Queen Elizabeth II looks when stripped of her inviolability. If it takes a staged photo by Jackson to reassure people that the Queen shits like everyone else, so be it. The question is, however, whether or not that really needs to be seen.

Alison Jackson, “Royal Jewels,” 2020.

In the art world, there is no sin greater than presenting a counterfeit work of art as one that is genuine; it’s an act that is legally considered criminal. But a work of art presenting a counterfeit event gets no such condemnation; in fact, grayheads will debate its finer qualities. This once again proves the disconnect between the art world and its secular equivalent, the world without art. Art is the only arena where something without usefulness becomes essential; plus, it’s a place where impersonators seem to represent what transpired far more accurately than the actual players.

“Truth is Dead,” 2020, at NeueHouse Hollywood, photos by Alison Jackson.

For all her black leather and vaunted no-bullshit approach, Jackson still delivers art in a weirdly boring traditional manner; that is, as expected. Jackson’s work is obviously created to play into the anticipations of Trump detractors, and there’s plenty to incite their rage. But while reality has limits, fiction does not; so maybe instead of presenting Trump doing what we already believe him to have done, Jackson could show Trump doing something completely unexpected: like working in a soup kitchen or helping an old lady across the street. Now that would really prove truth is dead.