Midcareerism

What's an artist to do when no longer dewy and not yet long in the tooth? Martin Herbert surveys the options, none of them pretty

A friend of mine told me some years ago that, in his opinion, the worst thing about getting older was that “you become invisible to women”. He’s approximately fifteen years older than me and thus, where I am concerned, something of an oracle. Catching up with him recently, though, he waxed nostalgic for his invisibility era, having discovered something worse still. He was visible again – but mortifyingly so, because people on public transport were offering him, a perceived codger, their seat. Seen when young, unseen in middle age, seen again as you get older:  does that sound familiar? If so, you may be an artist. During the last decade or so, the contemporary artworld has done some very public atoning for former exclusions: it has belatedly spotlighted, if sometimes self-servingly, artists of colour, LGBTQ+ artists, women artists – particularly old or deceased ones – and artists in general who don’t hail from Europe or the United States. Superficially at least, the artworld now looks inclusive, everyone welcome. But – and I hear about and witness it regularly, because it’s my age group and a lot of my friends are artists – there’s a missing demographic.