Description
Book SynopsisMatt Keegan interviews artists and commissions writing to reassess the 1990s as the moment when the Democratic Party abandoned its New Deal values and swung to the right In the wake of the Trump election, artist Matt Keegan (born 1976) began investigating the Democratic Party’s shifts over recent decades. In the late ’80s, members of the Democratic Leadership Council successfully moved the party’s platform to the right by including a pro-business, pro-military, interventionist agenda, and downplaying social infrastructure as a calculated break from its New Deal-era foundation. This shift led to Bill Clinton’s consecutive terms. 1996 captures this pivotal time in American politics and society through the experience of artists who completed their undergraduate studies in that year and voted for Clinton, and others who were born in 1996 and voted for the first time in 2016. Essays focus on cultural and ideological shifts from that time, such as the 1994 Crime Bill, 1996 Immigration Act, the Telecommunications Act, the start of Fox News and beyond.
Trade ReviewWith a vigilant spirit of inquiry, 1996 digs deep, extracting clarity from a legacy of deceit, while keeping humor and nuance intact. -- Charity Coleman * BOMB *
Artist Matt Keegan’s new book 1996 is an idiosyncratic close study of one pivotal year in politics, activism, and art. Edited by Svetlana Kitto and co-published by Inventory Press and New York Consolidated, 1996 explores artistic formation in the context of the Democratic Party’s slide to the right in the 1990s... 1996 is a yearbook, a time capsule, a queer history, and a treasure trove. -- Megan Milks * X-TRA *
In trying to come to grips with shifts in American electoral politics, ensure that key histories are passed on to posterity, and chart changes in queer identity, the book provides a nonfatalistic, idiosyncratic musing that brings together materials as varied as a play about Roger Ailes, a ’90s cruising diary, crusty magazine clippings, and an old video-store membership card -- Domenick Ammirati * Artforum *
An informative and, in the end, hopeful collection, demonstrating that we can learn a great deal from recent history, even as the time remaining to apply these urgent lessons grows increasingly short. -- Lucy Ives * Art In America *
