Tucson's own artists, dispirited by still another downtown downturn, might find the work instructive. Sestok set about imposing order on this chaos, and came up with a lovely bit of three-dimensional cubism, its dangerous components softened by a rhythmical composition, and colored in pale blue, rust, gray and black. Luchs hasn't done much to pretty up his findings. Paul Schwarz replicates old buildings before they tumble. Two 19th century mercantile buildings, of a kind built on Main Streets all over America, including Tucson's Congress Street, stand side by side, elegant in tan.
Arched windows parade along the second stories, above the old storefront windows and the doors.
A tape measure wittily serves as decorative cornice, a reminder that this is just a tiny replica of a building soon to die. And indeed, the little stores have the blank look of disuse, like a body that's recently succumbed to death. There are some fine paintings, too. Thick paint in broad bands of grey streak across the paper in stripes veering off horizontally, diagonally and vertically. This lively work suggests at once the geometry of the city and the auto engine that once powered its economy.