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. …
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 …
