Julian Montague created a system to document and categorize the stray shopping carts he encountered in various cities. The rudimentary system initially yielded thirteen basic types of stray carts and has since expanded to include thirty-three categories that can be used in any combination to identify a cart by its many defining qualities. By applying a strict scientific system of classification to a common feature of the urban environment, Montague reveals the absurdity of trying to define all aspects of the natural and man-made world through such systems. The artist’s decision to undertake the project as a fictional version of himself—a figure who acts as a kind of urban anthropologist—adds another layer of wry eccentricity to the endeavor.

As Montague describes the process: "My approach was to observe the stray cart in the way that a naturalist might observe an animal. I never posed or repositioned or interfered with stray carts. I thought of the human actors as unseen natural forces (people almost never appear directly in any of the project photographs). I wrote the text from the point of view of someone who took the taxonomic investigation of stray shopping carts extremely seriously."

Label from Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One: Humor and Satire from the Collection, November 19, 2016–March 19, 2017