ART: On The Road 

Before there was Route 66, there was the US 80 - the first highway to join the East and West coasts of America. From the Dustbowl migration of the 1930s, through the booming years of oil exploration, and leading to the fallout from hurricane Katrina, the scars and monuments of America¹s economic and cultural history are marked all along this road. Much of the route runs parallel to the Mexican border, the outposts along it yield details of great migrations from both East to West and South to North; in this remote part of the world the line between Mexico and America becomes very blurred indeed.

Now William Eckersley and Alex Shields have traveled route 80 - in the footsteps of Bonnie and Clyde, Martin Luther King and a crowd of other American greats, to produce a huge collection of landscape and portrait photography. A portrait emerges of a land where perpetual growth coincides with eternal decay, eerie scenes of men with guns, and of deserted petrol stations are chrystallised under the crisp white light of the American desert. Using only large and medium format film, Eckersley and Shields have vividly captured the atmosphere of both place and people along the way.

The exhibition is also extended to book form, with an excellent introduction by John Snow. This unusual collection of Americana is not to be missed. Go now, even if you think you¹ve seen it all before.

Alexander Shields And William Eckersley: US 80 - at the Cole Contemporary, London.

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