Route 66: Alternative Perspectives
June 28 – September 27, 2025
Opening Reception Saturday, June 28, 2025
- Members Preview 5 – 6 pm
- Public Reception 6 – 8 pm
- Artist Talks & Film Screening 6 pm
Coconino Center for the Arts is proud to launch the U.S. Route 66 Centennial Celebration with Route 66: Alternative Perspectives. A decidedly non-nostalgic and creatively interpretive photo-documentary of life along the Mother Road, the exhibition features Edward Keating’s MAIN STREET: THE LOST DREAM OF ROUTE 66 and Wes Pope’s POP 66: A Dreamy Pop Can-camera Oddesy Along Route 66 in the Main Gallery, along with Shades of Route 66: Celebrating Diversity along Historic Route 66 in the Project Gallery.
EDWARD KEATING (1956-2021) – Remembered as a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist for his work during the aftermath of the September 11th attacks (2002) and a shared recipient for the Pulitzer-Prize for the series, “How Race is Lived in America” (2000), Eddie Keating originally studied at Columbia University while working as a photographer for the Spectator in the 1980s. Throughout his body of work, we find humanity in small, often forgotten places and moments, documenting the human passion that drives hope and change, or a reason to look a little closer. Keating’s Main Street, The Lost Dream of Route 66 endures as a collection of over a decades’ worth of driving, documenting, and living on the mother road. Approaching the project as a journalist, Eddie captured the collapsing social and infrastructural conditions surrounding both residents and travelers of the road. An unceremonious look behind Americana postcards and into the faces and places that others pass by “Main Street” historically preserves what Keating sought to frame as composition: a road and culture slowly displaced. Our thanks to renowned photographer and Keating’s wife Carrie Boretz for partnering with Coconino Center for the Arts to bring this exceptional exhibition to Flagstaff, AZ.
WES POPE is an artist, educator, and former photojournalist whose work spans photography, videography, and multimedia storytelling. With over 25 years of experience, Pope has served as a staff photographer at the Chicago Tribune, CITY 2000, the Santa Fe New Mexican, and the Rocky Mountain News. He taught Photojournalism and Documentary Studies at Northern Arizona University in 2011-2012 before joining the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication, where he currently directs the Multimedia Storytelling master’s program in Portland.
Beyond journalism, Pope has been exploring pinhole photography since 1998, using the low-tech medium as both artistic expression and documentary tool. His ongoing series Pop 66: A Dreamy Pop Can Camera Oddesy Along Route 66 reimagines the American road trip through handmade pinhole cameras fashioned from soda cans. These images bend clarity and distortion together, transforming everyday scenes into lyrical meditations on time, memory, and disappearance along the iconic highway.
Pope’s work is on display at Coconino Center for the Arts and is now enhanced with immersive VR elements—photogrammetry and 360-degree video—supported by the University of Oregon. Visitors can scan QR codes with their phones to explore the aesthetic link between his analog photography and cutting-edge digital media.
To view more of Pope’s photographs, visit the satellite exhibition of POP 66 at SOSTA in Flagstaff.
Image Credit: (Above) Edward Keating, Broken Window, Route 66 Diner, Tulsa, OK., Silver Gelatin Ink-jet print, 2000; (Below) Wes Pope, Greenwood neighborhood on and around the 102nd anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, 2023.
EXHIBITION PROGRAMMING
Saturday, June 28, 6 pm Artist Talks & Film Screening: Wes Pope and Caitlin Keating
Wes Pope presents an artist talk about POP 66, followed by the late Edward Keating’s daughter Caitlin Keating speaking on behalf of MAIN STREET as an introduction to the documentary film Edward Keating – his life on Main Street, Route 66.
Saturday, August 2, 11am-12pm & 12:30-1:30pm On The Road: Youth Art Workshop Using Perspective to Draw a Realistic Road Scene, Instructor: Erika Tsouras
Tuesday, August 12, 6pm Shades of Route 66 Panel Discussion Ricardo Guthrie, Margaret Hangan, Ivan Pacheco, David Purcell, and Peter Runge
Thursday, September 25, 4-5pm, Flagstaff Festival of Science, Route 66 Pinhole Camera Obscura Workshop, Instructor: Wes Pope
Saturday, September 27, 6pm, Route 66: Diner Theater
