SANTA ANA, CA.- The California State University Fullerton Grand Central Art Center presents Progress: In Search of the American Esthetic opening Saturday, September 2, 2006 at CSUF Grand Central Art Center. PROGRESS: In Search of the American Esthetic is an exhibition that features photographs, video projections, audio and ephemera documenting artists Michael Davis and Stephen Moore’s cross-country trip by car from California to New York in 1970 and their subsequent trip traveling the same route in reversing, form New York to California, in 2005.

It was California in the late 60’s. Pop and Minimal dominated the art scene. During one tediously long seminar, Cal State Fullerton art students Davis and Moore decided that it was time to experience what they were theorizing, not secondhand, but in the flesh. They determined to see cutting-edge artwork and meet as many artists, curators, and gallery owners as possible. In addition, they would chronicle their travel experience via film and conceptual artworks.

What began as a graduate research project evolved into a 3,140 mile road trip documenting the icons and sounds of roadside America in 1970; a mixed-media observation that served as prolog to the destination itself.

According to Davis: Traversing America, we would witness a changing and transformed landscape, a representation of progress.

If progress is the notion that society moves forward, advancing toward a more desirable form, it seemed to us in 1970 that this concept was in essence paradoxical. These contradictions framed our viewpoint in the creation of a time-lapse film and the compilation of hundreds of images shot on the road.

PROGRESS 2005 is a mirror image of that drive. Departing from the Big Apple, Davis and Moore traced the original route, closing the loop that they began 35 years ago. Along the way, they attempted to translate the jargon, political and visual, that has since proliferated along the nation's highways.

Their documentation tracks the globalization of the American economy, and its impact on the landscape. Present-day technology replaced film and hand-written journals with digital video and web updates. At the end of their journey, they perused the West Coast art scene.

They journeyed not so much to a destination but toward a point of view, asking: What has changed about roadside America in the years since the original trip? And how does that affect the way they—and other travelers—see the country?

They encountered the transition from homespun signage to corporate logo, from unique abode to mass housing, and confronted the transformation of not just the American landscape but the American Dream as well.

The artists are both Alumni of California State University Fullerton. Michael Davis is based in San Pedro, California and Stephen Moore is based in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Subsequent to the exhibition, Grand Central Press will also release a publication documenting the project.