KVT – What’s in an Age-ist Word?

KVT has fun with the age OLD question about what becomes a wrinkle

I got all excited about YOUNG artists when I discovered Nguyen Dinh Hoang Viet at Dong Phong’s Affordable Art Show.

and my mind did a trip back into the recent past when you couldn’t move around town but be tripping over a gallery that was hosting the latest talented young thing or having a group exhibition of work by lots of talented young things.

As time has crept on most of those talented young things have slipped into their thirties and even low forties, and they still command a lot of attention with the new mob of talented young things largely ignored….except by groups like Doclab

Sometimes we see an exhibition of art work with the adjective YOUNG affixed to the artist’s name …and not so long ago the young artist adjectived was closer to 40 than 39.

But I guess it’s all a matter of perception….or self esteem!

As many people get older they desperately hold onto tags that make them feel good about themselves. Thus the YOUNG cut off has crept from 25 to 30 to 35 (35 being the oldest you can be to be in a major overseas competition for YOUNG artists, performers etc) which is all a bit strange to me because by 35 most people are midway through their lives and thus should be ready to be called middle aged

MIDDLE AGED has become an obscene word in a lot of cultures where youth is promoted as being the beallandendall of life’s existence. Cultures where one of the funniest aspects of age-ing is noticing how many ‘middle aged’ and ‘elderly’ people are firmly stuck in the decades that spawned their youth. Those sixty somethings that won’t let go of geriatric rockstars like the wrinkly Rolling Stones …..the fifty somethings who still creakily gyrate to their long ago idols book-ended by U2 and Tina Turner, and who pretend that the 80ies were anything but slightly pretentious …. and those forty somethings who are desperately banging their eardrums with techno so that they might be mistaken for thirtyish.

MIDDLE AGED!!! I know people who yell and scream bloody blue murder if they are thus labeled. Apparently many are going to live until they are 140. These are the mob that are determined to expunge the term MIDDLE AGED from all lexicons

As for old or elderly!!!

Now I sort of silently term anyone over 60 as almost OLD, and anyone over 75 as definitely ELDERLY. If I say it in the hearing of such aged folks I often receive a barrage of abuse and am told through gritted teeth that people are ‘only as old as they feel! So F off!’

The new OLD seems to be about 90 and ELDERLY is a swear word you don’t dare utter in polite places. To use the term GERIATRIC about someone in your family or social circles is a capital offence worth being hung, drawn and quartered for uttering.

Which brings me back to YOUNG……for a couple of weeks before I head off for a summer break I’ll try to highlight a few rising stars in the art world….while still raving on about anything that is brilliant even if presented by wrinklies and near wrinklies

As usual I’ll leave out most live contemporary music which I appreciate but which no one seems to really listen to if you go to a venue and which often seems to refrain the golden oldies of the 70ies, 80ies and 90ies….oh gawd I used one of those age-ist words again.

One of my first forays will be into the artistic world of the YOUNGsters who are part of LUCY’S DREAM.