Reviving America’s Original Super Highway
US Route 66 is a road of many names and perhaps the most famous ode to a highway ever penned. In the 88 years since the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway received its official designation as Route 66, countless dreamers, migrant workers and depression-era “Okies” traveled West, just as songwriter Bobby Troup “got his kicks” in 1946 with wife Cynthia, on a cross-country drive filled with dreams of stardom. Route 66, aka “The Main Street of America,” was conceived in part by real estate agent Cyrus Avery based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and attorney John Woodruff from Springfield, Missouri, to connect the smaller towns throughout “middle America” with a national thorough-fare. Over time, the 2,448-mile stretch of highway transcended these practical origins and became an icon of American culture.
On view at the Autry National Center, “Route 66: The Road and the Romance,” embraces the nostalgia and promotes current conservation efforts. As Jeffrey Richardson, the museum’s curator of Western history, popular culture and firearms writes, “Although it was primarily in use for only a few decades, popular cultures and a sense of nostalgia firmly established Route 66 as a powerful symbol of 20th-century America by the time it was decommissioned in 1985… there is now a concerted effort to document and preserve what is considered one of America’s great resources.”
“Route 66” also seeks to shed light on lesser-known aspects of the highway’s history and reverse the homogenizing effects that commoditization has taken on the legendary route. Although the route was conceived in a time of prosperity, it is perhaps best remembered for its associations with The Great Depression. The exhibition is divided into four main sections that recognize and exceed this connection: “The Roots of the Route,” “The Mother Road” (en homage of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”), “Another Roadside Attraction,” and “End of the Trail.” Throughout each, works by towering figures of American art, including Thomas Hart Benton, an early work by Jackson Pollock, Maynard Dixon, and photographs of Dust-Bowl refugees by Horace Bristol, Dorothea Lange, and Arthur Rothstein are mixed in other cultural artifacts that tie into this history. These relics range from the iconic—the original 120-foot-long scrolled manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and Woody Guthrie’s Martin acoustic guitar and hand-written lyrics to “I Ain’t Got No Home”—to the once-mundane, i.e., a Phillips 66 gasoline pump, and poignant inclusion of the Negro Travelers Green Book, an essential guidebook of sorts, which identified both welcoming establishments and the dangerous “sundowner” towns. Rounding out the exhibition are a selection of California Pop artist Ed Ruscha’s 1962 photographs that document his journey from LA back to Oklahoma City where he had grown up, and ultimately form his first artist book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963). The historic photographs are installed with Jeff Brouws’ images of the same sites taken 29 years later, providing a stark and moody look at the toll that years of “Decline and Neglect” have taken on “Wills Rogers Highway.”
Across the hall from The Autry’s “Route 66” another exhibition seeks to put a new spin on typecast notions of Americana, here taking on the aptly titled, “Art of the West.” The exhibition combines the historic—Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and their peers—with contemporary visions by artists such as David Levinthal, John Sonsini, and Emmi Whitehorse. However, the desire to shed new light on, or recontextualize, pigeonholed notions of American culture has not been the sole vision of the Autry this past summer. “Stephen Shore: Uncommon Places” at the California Museum of Photography features selections from the photographer’s experimentation with 8 x 10-inch view camera on his road trips across America. Another mix of interpretations of the “Mother Road” can be seen through the vision of 20 contemporary printmakers brought together for a brief sojourn at California State University Northridge, “Route 66, Westbound to Paradise,” running September 10-18. Curated by Fawn Atencio, the show includes work by Lauria Berman, Catherine Chauvin, Althea Murphy-Price, Mark Ritchie, and Michelle Rozic.
Originally published in art ltd. magazine (Sept/Oct 2014)