Magdalena Ujma
EDITORIAL: AGES

Ageism has many faces in the art world. It is common to such an extent that participants in artistic life no longer notice it. Even people who are usually self‑aware and efficiently unmask discriminatory speech use it automatically, involuntarily, and indiscriminately. Age discrimination affects (almost) everyone.

Simply put, ageism is about treating someone in a special way because they are young or old. It consists in denying a person’s value because they have not gathered sufficient experience over the years they have lived, or conversely: because they lack a fresh view. Contemptuous terms, well‑established in the language, such as ‘old coot’, ‘old hag’, ‘Johnny raw’ or ‘chit’, and – above all – the invention of recent years, i.e., ‘dziaders’ [similar to ‘old white man’ – transl.], all show well the crassitude of ageism. A person is looked down on not because of what kind of person they are but because of when they were born. The ‘dziaders’, moreover, is a special case, as it originates from young people’s defiance towards the elderly. The definition from the Great Dictionary of the Polish Language, kept by the Institute of Polish Language of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IJP PAN), includes the characteristic of ‘a person who treats young people in a disrespectful and condescending way’.¹ And the defiance goes beyond developing ageist fantasies. New generations struggle for identity in a reality arranged by their mothers and fathers and attempt to occupy a place in public life.

However, the cult of youth in today’s world is a fact and is due to reasons other than the replacement of generations (even if it happens in a country as deeply marked by history as Poland). Of course, it originates from modernity. It was precisely the modern era that brought along the model of a new man who was supposed to be young, immature, and inexperienced, but also receptive, flexible, and fresh. These motifs resound clearly as early as in Rousseau’s concept of upbringing in harmony with nature. The characteristics of youth gained an advantage over wisdom, knowledge, and experience.

A New Man for a New Time is a slogan carried by the French Revolution, later adopted by 20th‑century totalitarianisms.² A young person becomes not so much an inhabitant as cannon fodder and a building block of a new, better world. Over time, the new world turned out to be a factory or a camp, and its dweller a cog in the mass society. The vision of an overman‑hero of modernity did not contradict the vision of a man‑pawn in the machine of industrial reality. The youthful, athletic bodies that Leni Riefenstahl showcased in her cinematic apology of Nazism did not differ much from those of supporters of the Bolshevik revolution, photographed by Alexander Rodchenko. These are visions of figures with flawless human shells and mask‑like faces, formed in the same mould, devoid of history; people without properties.

One hundred years later, in late capitalism, this technocratic vision from the early 20th century billowed into a crowd of individuals, each of whom – as ideology strives to make us believe – is supposed be the smith of their own fate. Individuals carve their hybrid, cyborg bodies from the sweat of their brow, using aesthetic surgery complemented by the cosmetic, fitness, well‑being, and mindfulness industries. Today, the ideal of youth shows the current goal of the capitalist project: elimination of death, with eternally young people‑customers of never‑ending consumption. People of high status, with serious achievements, endowed with influence, power, and enormous wealth, are spending fortunes on anti‑ageing. Old age does not have good connotations, does not confirm status, does not bring prestige, does not inspire trust. This phenomenon primarily affects women, as ageism has a clear gender‑related aspect. However, it applies more and more to men as well. Meanwhile, people who are in fact young are doing really badly nowadays.³

The values carried by old age – experience accumulated over the years, memory that advises caution and distance, slower pace of life, patience – were commonly rejected. On the other hand, modernity contributed over time to the elderly people’s emancipation movement. Today, old age basks in the limelight. In ‘Wysokie Obcasy’, actress and model Helena Norowicz declares she can do a split at the age of 89. I take this confession with admiration, but also with a bit of doubt. Elderly people are called ‘seniors’, which shows the attitude of today’s culture towards old age. Borrowed from English, the term adds exoticism to this stage of life, which makes us suspect it is supposed to camouflage the shameful fact of being a person in ordinary, unattractive old age. Therefore, seniors are being activated, educated at third‑age universities, and all kinds of classes are organised for them. Yet, old age is no new youth even though we can get the impression as if the two periods of life had switched places. The elderly are having fun, the young are worried. The ‘third age’ is governed by its own rules that stem not only from culture but also from biology. Today, it is subordinated to a pattern of active life, instead of leaving room for rest, peace, slowing down… Thus, philosenilism hides an important component in the form of hatred of the final stage of life.

It is hard to say when young age ends and transforms into middle and then old age. The boundaries are fluid and constantly shifting; it seems that youth begins and ends earlier and earlier. The ‘Young Poland’ ministerial program sets its limit at the thirty‑fifth year of life. Ageism, on the other hand, affects not only the advanced age. It concerns young people just as often. A young person is easy to be taken advantage of, as they do not have the protective armour of experience, life commitments, or responsibility for the family yet. They have considerable motivation to work, they want to learn, come to the fore, be expressive and uncompromising. In workplaces, they are squeezed like a lemon, only to be abandoned at the threshold of adulthood (with burnout syndrome). In the world of cultural institutions, this happens more commonly than is acknowledged. Hence the constant ‘processing’ of young people and considerable staff turnover in low‑paid positions, those being the only ones available to them. The system of internships also contributes to their exploitation, making them available for work ‘paid’ only with entries in their résumé. A similar phenomenon is the fetishisation of young art on the market, which is another way to describe the entire Polish artworld. What plays a crucial role here is the lower price of their works and the possibility of a raising it by several hundred per cent when the investment is successful and the artist makes a quick career.

Middle age, in turn, is a mystery: it is hard to determine what it really is. Therefore, in its case, negative methods of definition are used. It is referred to as the age of ‘already and not yet’ – no longer youth and not old age yet. In popular perception, artists ‘afflicted’ by the middle stage of their biography become invisible. They neither promise the exciting surprise of their debut, nor are they old enough to be restored to the market by way of a ‘rediscovery’. In behind‑the‑scenes conversations, critics call them boring, because middle‑aged artists – perhaps female artists especially – keep repeating the same things. How can one constantly write on paintings? How can they never give up painting dots? How can they talk in a performance? This is how the way of expression, the individual language, or the idiom that artists have developed is often talked about behind the scenes. Artists who managed to escape such a reception trap unharmed include Paweł Susid, Andrzej Tobis, and Ewa Zarzycka. However, many more people have disappeared while continuing, unnoticed and out of sight, to pursue their art.

The texts published in this issue of ‘Elementy’ show the ways of treating artists based on the number of years of their life, in the late‑capitalist reality of a semi‑peripheral Global North state, i.e., Poland.

The main aspects of the topic and the nuances and paradoxes related to it are outlined in the editorial discussion that opens the issue. In it, we focus primarily on the issue of art schools and the environment of contemporary art and the conditions for its creation as well as contemporary patterns of being an artist. Speaking of theoretical materials, we propose a reflection on the role of ageism in theatre and dance art and the skilful disregard of it by outstanding artists (conducted by Katarzyna Niedurny and Katarzyna Słoboda, respectively); an essay on fashion (analysis by Janusz Noniewicz) and a text on the paradoxes of middle age breaking into old age in art (Marta Ostajewska’s interview with Stelark, Grzegorz Sztwiertnia’s autobiographical text, Agata Zbylut’s opinion article). Within the field of visual arts, we recommend the essay on the phenomenon of ageism as evidenced in the so‑called selfie‑feminism (by Katarzyna Oczkowska). We also publish Anna Kozłowska’s analysis focused on images of old age in advertising which reflect current, commonly shared social beliefs. At the intersection of sociological analysis and autobiographical confession is Monika Weychert’s exploration of the experience of menopause as mediated by ageist culture. In the current issue as well is Pamela Bożek’s compilation of workshops with people experiencing double exclusion: as refugees and senior citizens at the same time. And, graphic essays by Jadwiga Sawicka and Dariusz Vasina convey the essential, ironic and satirically bitter truths about old age. We also encourage you to meditate on the illustrations by Marta Ignerska and Magdalena Sawicka that open each theoretical essay: they constitute a complete opinion on ageism as well.

Have a good read!