1990: Already ten years into trickle down economics, a rise in cynicism, growing racial and class tension, and the widening gap between the very rich and the rest of us. L.A. before the riots of 1992. A time of defunding vital social programs, the abandonment of the ideals on which our country was supposedly founded. […]
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, AIDS, and ACT UP More
As I put my nineties mixtape playlist together recently, I was reminded just how many cultural points of entry there are into the nineties. I spent the first half of the decade scouring for clothes for my grunge wardrobe at thrift stores and spent the latter half on AOL Instant Messenger, writing HTML on my
Be Kind, Rewind: A Look Back at the 1990s with “Come as You Are” More
A few weeks ago, a visitor came up to me after I had finished leading a tour of Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties at the Blanton. He overheard me speaking in detail about Jack Whitten’s King’s Wish (Martin Luther’s Dream), a large painting that teeters delicately between abstraction and figuration, bearing a
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was a particularly turbulent chapter in American history. It was the product of social inequality, was motivated by hope and justice, and took place in tandem with a quickly growing media culture. Black-and-white pictures of protestors attacked by dogs in the Birmingham race riots, footage of President Kennedy’s
Art and Evidence of the Civil Rights Movement More
