Modernist architecture is the subject of a current exhibit at the Tucson Museum of Art, comprising 6 oil paintings by the British artist, Andy Burgess.
In 2016, The New York Times published a now-infamous article with the headline, 'Why Won't Mid Century Design Die?'—a blunt, exasperated reference to the stronghold that the era's lauded aesthetic continues to have on today's design cognoscenti. The answer, of course, lies within the question itself. Nearly three-quarters of a century after architects and builders with names like Neutra and Koenig, Wexler and Eichler began dotting the southern California landscape with flat-roofed, glass-fronted houses, the Mid Century Modern era remains as golden and promising as the California sun—irresistible fodder for luscious coffee table books and breathless blog posts, impossibly sleek modern furniture and sold-out design festivals. With no subsequent design movement having remotely managed a commensurate feat, the more salient question may be: if Mid Century design dies, what, exactly, will take its place?
Artists, like Andy Burgess, the subject of Mid Century Perspectives: Paintings by Andy Burgess, currently on view at the Tucson Museum of Art, provide ample evidence as to why modernism remains an alluring attraction to creatives working in disciplines as disparate as painting, industrial design, and architecture. A British artist who escaped the brooding skies of London for the eternal sunshine of Tucson Arizona, Burgess has committed the last decade to exp