There’s been an upsurge in stencil art around the streets of Exeter recently. Whilst stopped at the traffic lights, and observing one on the wall beside us, C asked ‘who does that stuff?’ I said it looked like ‘BEEF’ was responsible for this particular one, but ‘urban artists’ in general. She said ‘right. So how old are these urban artists then? Young? Old?’ At which point I was stumped.

I still am.

I want to say ‘young’ but know that’s not necessarily the case, when so many of the activities we would once have said were part of ‘youth culture’ are now in fact no longer restricted to a particular age group. Is ‘youth culture’ therefore no longer existent? Can we only talk in terms of culture as a vague entity, where divisions and definitions are fluid and multi-layered?

And if, in these post-boundary times, we accept that as a notion ‘youth culture’ is no longer relevant, when did it stop being so? When did Youth Culture pass away? Was it when the accepted constituent ingredients of Youth Culture started to reference themselves? Was it when the first ‘revival’ reared its head? Was it the rockabilly/mod revivals of the early ‘80s? And can we blame the ‘80s for EVERYthing? Or was it earlier still?

And does anyone really care?

No, thought not.


posted by duke harringay at 5:59 PM