50/66 — Route 66, Film & the Art You’re Not Supposed to Find

Route 66 turns one hundred this year, and most of what made it famous is gone. Motels boarded up, gas stations rusting where they stand, whole towns bypassed by the interstate and left to hold their shape without a function. It is a road that survives largely as an idea — which is exactly the condition Mars Yahl and Roomattack set out to photograph and draw.

For two months they drove it end to end. Yahl shot film along the way, recording what still stands of an America quietly given up on. Roomattack worked in the opposite direction: in every motel room they slept in, he hid a drawing on the wall and left it there. One was documenting what remains, the other planting what would have to be looked for. 50/66 Hidden Art Project puts the two side by side, in two chapters — On Route 66 and Off Route 66 — and in doing so becomes something closer to a map. Route 66 enthusiasts have already started hunting the hidden pieces down, town by town.

Published in an edition of 200 for the centenary of the Mother Road — and, as the authors like to point out, two hundred years after Niépce fixed the first photograph — the book carries its own second layer: several images animate in augmented reality. Mars Yahl and Roomattack will be at the shop to present the project and sign copies. Anyone buying the book on the night gets a QR code that brings the cover, and one of the photographs, to life.

📖 50/66 Hidden Art Project — Book launch & signing with Mars Yahl and Roomattack
🗓 Friday, November 6th | 🕖 7PM – 9PM
📍 Le Grand Jeu, 15 passage de Ménilmontant, Paris 11