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is it really art deco though? I think it's closer to modernist art: art deco is flat, but very symetric, straight, well-defined, intentional, rigid. Also art deco is very much about bling and excess and grandeur: think great Gatsby party scenes. The style here is more reminescent of Picasso: uneven, in motion, tilted, psychotic even. What we see here is also much more plain, restrained (in terms of grandiosity) and even threadbare: it's Picasso and friends before they're famous drinking cheap wine in their run-down attic studio in Paris.

That having been said, I don't really dig the style presented in the article, but I see the aesthetic value nonetheless. I'm not sure it would be possible to pull off high quality modernism with ubiquitness metro art has. Probably we would get something much, much worse...

It's more googie/futurist than art deco

Are you familiar with the tiki/Polynesian Pop subculture?

There are artists such as Derek Yaniger whose works have the same mid-20th century vibe:

http://www.derekart.com

Thanks, there's some really cool stuff in there! Shame it hasn't been updated since 2007.