The 90s are back: why now they revalue the 'cursed decade'

Sing and jump with Fito Páez or Guns N' Roses in a massive recital.

Eating with the family watching Mirtha Legrand or Marcelo Tinelli on TV.

Going to the movies to be surprised by the dinosaurs of

the adventures of

or the effects of the

All three scenes could have happened in 2022… Or three decades ago.

Like never before

and, although many things have changed over time, others seem like a continuity.

What the world in general and Argentina in particular experienced in that decade is unique and difficult to apprehend in a single concept, but

, this period begins to be revisited in a new light, both in the field of politics and society as in art and even gastronomy.

The fateful threat “the 90s are back” now seems to be redefining itself as

to better understand what happened to us as a society.

And it is that it is a decade of contrasts that for years was hardly talked about:

The fateful end of the supposed bonanza cycle of Convertibility, in December 2001, with 39 deaths, generated so much

that everything from the 1990s became infamous.

However, now, that decade is rediscovered by the youngest and revalued by those of us who lived through it as a unique moment in the history of the world and the country.

Much of what we believe always existed was born in the 90s: the Internet, globalization, cell phones, the coming out of the closet of diversity,

, the great recitals.

There is a growing nostalgia for the 90s and perhaps it is because, despite its conflicts, those of us who lived through it began to suspect that perhaps everything was not so bad.

Much of what we believe always existed was born in the 1990s: the Internet, globalization, cell phones, the coming out of the diversity closet.

In times where extremes become attractive and polarization has been installed as the default logic in almost any discussion,

, irresponsible and meaningless seems to require a certain amount of courage,

although the same pendular movement of social interests is now bringing us closer to an absolutely unexpected revaluation.

Perhaps a minor fact, but not irrelevant: in October of last year, a group called MENEM (Student Movement of the New Majority Encounter) won the elections for the Di Tella University Student Center with 53% of the votes.

How is it that the man from La Rioja, twice president in a decade marked by political corruption and frivolity, became a banner for university students who did not live under his two administrations?

Carlos Saúl Menem is also being rescued by the Libertad Avanza party.

Its leader, Javier Milei, repeats to whoever wants to hear it that "Menem's first government was the best government in history."

There is no doubt: the 1990s were

, factory closures, social protests, and fierce indebtedness.

But they were also years in which the borders between countries became more permeable,

, and devices and technologies became popular that today seem essential to us.

In 1996 and 1997 the pickets began in Cutral-Có (Neuquén) for layoffs after the privatization of YPF.

Photo: Clarín Archive.

art factory

This cursed decade is the axis of

an exhibition from the Fortabat Collection that will continue until February, and that is part of an extensive investigation by its curator, art historian Francisco Lemus.

The exhibition includes works by artists such as Jorge Gumier Maier, Marcia Schvartz, Liliana Maresca and Sergio Avello.

“The distance from the time allowed critical readings and also

curatorial and academic investigations, ” explains Lemus.

This makes the 90s more valued in every sense: aesthetic, historical, political, symbolic, even at the market level.

Today, the 90s are an expanded object, they are a vital legacy, a first account of contemporary art that allows us to look more deeply at

, and also at the present of art.

"Faced with prejudices that could confuse the production of art with the supposed frivolity of Menem, Lemus works on how the end of hyperinflation and the arrival of Convertibility created an unprecedented space for creation that was marked by HIV as

: “HIV arrived in Argentina in the mid-1980s in a scenario of political crisis and impoverishment.

Today, the 90s are an expanded object, they are a vital legacy that allows us to take a deeper look at our avant-garde and neo-avant-garde, and art.

To this panorama, we must add the arbitrary arrests of gays and transvestites on the street and in nightclubs.

Official resources for

were scarce.

Faced with this situation, large aid networks were built.

The media construction of the virus crossed scientific knowledge, prejudices about people's sexual activity and old myths of homophobia.

The fitness culture and business profile installed worldwide during the 80s and 90s contrasted with the critical development of the disease.

In the artistic community, bonds of solidarity and care policies were drawn up.

.”

Lemus argues that “some artists intensified their production as a way of embracing life and making survival a daily challenge;

these works illuminate the outdoors of the bodies: men and women in their most naked condition”.

On the other hand, the curator Florencia Qualina was in charge of a 2022 exhibition that began the

:

.

It took place between May and August at the Cazadores Foundation and especially considered the influence of television on the aesthetics of that time.

“Thinking or reliving the 90s has an aura of mirage, in the sense of the fantasy that promoted the 1 to 1, the ambivalence between destruction and generation of consumption that previously did not exist or were prohibitive”, explains Qualina.

The actress and dancer Cris Miró was the first transvestite star of the Buenos Aires magazine in the 90s. Photo: Clarín Archive.

“Cable television, or plain television, was a platform for thought, an enormous irradiation of aesthetics.

One of the most powerful aspects was given by the crosses

.

This can be verified when we saw Batato Barea, Alejandro Urdarpilleta and Humberto Tortonese – all Parakultural stars – appearing on Antonio Gasalla's program in

But

in even more ambitious terms, the same thing happened with Nirvana and alternative rock, or in the sophisticated programming of HBO: the underground becomes massively visible.

In her exhibition, Qualina chose pieces by Gustavo Nieto, Karina El Azem and other artists, as well as investigating genres that carried the prefix “video”, so much of the time: video art, video dance and video clip.

Still,

.

Agustín Vidal, a 37-year-old visual producer, finds inspiration for his work in the 90s: “That is the genesis of almost everything we are today as a society.

For example, there is technology, with the first cell phones and the first Internet;

there is the

, with the world shrinking and capitalism leading the charge after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Today we are living under rules that were first written in the 1990s."

Vidal, who acknowledges that he had

with two professional parents who always kept their jobs, understands this decade as the key to knowing who he is today.

The decade also marked the entry into the public discourse of the world of diversity, which until then had been relegated. 

“I was born in the mid-80s, so I entered the 90s at five years old and left at 15, a key moment for people.

I learned my own languages, a way of seeing the world, ways of connecting with other people... This makes me understand current events since the change, because it is a decade that begins in one way and ends completely revolutionized.

In that sense, it is different from other moments in history: it begins without the Internet and ends with Y2K (the computer apocalypse that was going to happen in 2000 and never happened);

it starts with inflation and says goodbye with a Convertibility falling apart.

They were ten years with changes that represent

”, He explains.

Boom in networks

Perhaps it is this spirit of transformation that makes the 90s so attractive to the youngest, who today

as great discoveries.

This is what BB Sanzo often experiences, one of the faces of those years thanks to his participation in the mythical FM Z95 or accompanying Cris Morena in

Clippings

of the

have gone viral for centennials.

"I don't even remember certain things that are replicated on the networks today and surprise them," she admits.

María Soledad Morales was a teenager murdered in Catamarca in 1990.

“I am seeing a new perception of the 90s, which may or may not be correct, but which includes, for example, the revaluation of Menemism no longer as ironic consumption but as

that were lived.

I think for a long time

because we were ashamed

It is not an exclusive phenomenon of that decade: I remember very well the demonization of the 80s for being 'too plastic and fluid', although it later returned as aesthetics and as music.

The same thing is happening with the 90s: where some believed that there was nothing salvageable, perhaps there is something that could be claimed”, says Sanzo.

Revolution on the palate

There is a claim and it is gastronomic.

(title of one of the most important research books on Menemism, written by Sylvina Walger), although according to Carina Perticone, a semiotician specializing in food and culture, the gastronomy that defined in the 90s it was much more complex.

“

In those years, sushi became popular, which even has its roots in the 60s and 70s, but only in the restaurants of the Japanese community.

It would take

for it to start being fashionable.

It was the food that was served at the Renault Museum, in Palermo Chico, where the models went and ate six pieces so as not to lose their figure”, says Perticone.

"In the 90s, the "food courts" of the shopping malls appeared, with several fast food options in the same place." 

“The 90s are also the fusions of different styles;

the appearance of Italian foods that are perhaps frequent today, such as tiramisu or caprese salad, Mediterranean food but seen from Miami, with dishes such as pasta with cream, shrimp and avocado;

and

, ”he adds.

And it is that the food says a lot about the historical and cultural moment in question.

, with several fast food options in the same place, while cheap food stalls multiplied to stave off hunger, such as superpanchos with a shower of French fries.

Today they are a postcard that is repeated in many kiosks throughout the country and that flourishes when the economic crisis closes the door to more people who cannot afford to sit down to eat in a restaurant.

Champagne, meanwhile, became a consumption that marked a class aspiration, but

, which competed for and won the position of wine as the preferred bottle on the Argentine table.

According to industry figures, between 1990 and 2000, beer sales almost tripled (from 6,170 hectoliters per year to 15,000), to match the line of wine, which was plummeting.

This trend became more acute in the 21st century.

In many cases, alcohol went hand in hand with consumption such as cocaine, which had arrived in the country at the end of the 1980s, but which increased its circulation and became more accessible during Convertibility.

Whether listening to pop, rave, or rock & roll, the duo was a chemical stimulant with the relatively sedating ability of alcohol.

widen the gaze

The decade also marked the entry into the public discourse of the world of diversity, which until then had been relegated to the margins or to the clandestine space.

From the interventions of the activist Carlos Jáuregui in the program

, by Mariano Grondona, to the stunning star Cris Miró, who gracefully faced the uncomfortable questions of Mauro Viale and Mirtha Legrand,

, gender identity and expression.

Even the transvestite Mariela Muñoz, who adopted abandoned children, demonstrated her maternal instinct on television.

Madonna filmed Evita, the Alan Parker film, in 1996.

A pioneer in this area was Sir James, a drag queen who was the soul of places like El Dorado, Bar Bolivia and Morocco.

When in Argentina only the term "transvestite" was known, and it was linked to the café concert or humor,

and led a movement that had to fight hard to open heads even in the underground environment and alternative.

For years she has been Victoria, a trans woman who lives in London and who sees that the new generations do not know the rich history of diversity in our country: “The

.

I will never forget that once I stood in line to enter Bunker, the great gay nightclub in Buenos Aires, and they rejected me for wearing makeup.

I turned around and swore revenge!

That revenge was to create

I did not have a peso so the money was put by another.

But in that group effort I put my head, ideas... and a lot of beauty!"

Victoria, however, believes that much of those years still needs to be rediscovered: “I don't see that there are inspirations in the 90s today.

, in social networks, even at the time to think about their digital influences… I wish today we had something like Nirvana's grunge!

There was always commercial music, but today it's hard for me to see things that aren't conquered by the market”.

“We gave birth to diversity in Argentina and it was not forced because we lived it to the surface.

We broke what was established because we were not masked but we

, we were totally free, shameless people, who wanted a better, more open reality, more than integrating everyone, ”he says.

For Victoria, that diverse story still needs to be told, which had unique and pioneering moments in the region: “

.

I see that here in Europe everyone talks about

and I wonder what would be said with a good movie from our 90s…”

Perhaps it will be time to start thinking about what a feature film would look like to rescue this

but which explains a lot about what we are today as a country and what we can become.

Taking

charge of what we were and looking without fanaticism is the way to return to the 90s to inspire ourselves and learn from our mistakes. 

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