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Stray Shopping Carts.
A Guide to Field Identification.
Photographs and text by Julian Montague.
Harry N Abrams,
New York,
2006.
176 pp.,
250 color illustrations,
6x8½".
This is one of those artists books that gets under the skin and into the heads of people who like to think they’ve seen everything. More taxonomy or typology than fine-art monograph, Montague’s ingenious, exhaustive (though compact and sturdily bound, fit for field work) survey takes pleasure in the entirely prosaic mission of “bringing a richer understanding of these overlooked artifacts of the urban landscape.” He takes the mission seriously; if this piece is intended as irony, it is well cloaked in analytical and graphic earnestness. An example: The twelfth type classified under “Class B: True Strays” is listed as “simple vandalism” and is identified with an image of a wire cart hanging from a traffic sign. The caption reads, “This specimen is a relatively rare example of a B/12 that involves moving a cart upward. In the majority of cases, carts are resituated in a downward direction.” Tongue in cheek? You tell me. Some of the 21 other Class B types are “train damaged (always fragmented by force of impact),” “plow crush,” “structurally modified,” and “transient imposter.” Like the carts, Montague’s photographs, full of situational detail, are pedestrian, unprepossessing vehicles for conveying material goods—in this case, the evidence of an attentive, thorough (six years of work), and utterly beguiling project, one that will have you looking twice at these flotsam and jetsam of consumer society wherever you find them. GEORGE SLADE
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