Proper bio coming someday, it will be in the third person, I promise.

But in the meantime: 

I’m an artist/graphic designer/Illustrator/photographer based in Buffalo, New York. My various practices often overlap and influence one another. I didn’t go to school for anything that I now do professionally, I suppose that means I’m “self taught” but somehow that doesn’t feel like a completely accurate description. My father taught art and design history, so I had a lot of exposure to the arts as a kid. 

My (contemporary) art work spans a wide range of mediums and approaches, from multi-year conceptual projects to abstract paintings. At one time I was known for a long term art project dedicated to developing an elaborate taxonomy for identifying stray shopping carts. More recently I’ve been working on making exhibition posters and other ephemera for a fictional 1970s art institution. In the past I have exhibited at spaces that include, Art in General (NYC), Black & White Gallery (NYC), Real Art Ways (CT), Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center (Buffalo) and Socrates Sculpture Park (NYC). I have work in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Museum, Martin Z. Margulies, Norton Museum of Art, The Progressive Insurance Company, and numerous private collections. See below for full art CV.

I have been a one-man graphic design/illustration studio since 2006. I’ve done a lot of work over the years for cultural non-profits in my region, including: Just Buffalo Literary Center, Buffalo Public Schools, Hallwalls Contemporary Art CenterUniversity at Buffalo SUNY (School of Architecture, School of Arts Management, School of Music), Buffalo Humanities Festival, Art Play/Ground NY.

Nationally/Internationally my clients have included: Warby Parker, Sonos, Continental Tires, The Atlantic, Black Ocean Publishing, Ciele Athletics, Cambridge University Press, Racquet Magazine, Nuits Sonores Music Festival (Lyon FR), Modernist Adelaide. Lately I’ve been working on more music projects, designing packaging or merch for JAZZ IS DEAD (Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad), Bronzerat Records, Heavy Trash (Jon Spencer), Sara Gazarek, Walter Smith III, Uncle Acid & The Dead Beats, Vacationer and many others.

I also have work that falls in between my contemporary art practice and my client based graphic work. This takes the form of open edition print series and other products.

I rarely apply for artist residencies, grants or design competitions, but I do have a Silver National Addy award for my 2013 poster series State of America for Print Collection, and my book The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification won the 2006 Diagram/Booksellers Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. A revised edition of the book was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2023.

This is a short film about me and my work made as part of a project I did for Continental Tires in 2019.

Curriculum Vitae

The below mostly relates to my art career, though some of the publications and press listed relate more to my graphic design career.

BORN: 1973, Madison, WI, USA

EDUCATION: B.A. 1996 Media Studies, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA

LIVE/WORK: Buffalo, NY

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024 Domestic Materials, Moments Festival / Escuela de Arte San Telmo, Málaga, Spain

2023 Julian Montague: Projects, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY

2023 Julian Montague: Art/Design, Elsie B. Rosefsky Memorial Gallery, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY

2021 Ficciones, MIMMA | Museo Interactivo de la Música, Málaga, Spain

2021 Form & Fray, Maison Kitsuné New York Perry-Archives & Gallery, New York, NY

2019 Semi-Fictions, Anna Kaplan Contemporary, Buffalo, NY

2018 Recent Fictions, Artpark, Lewiston, NY

2017 Fictions, Anna Kaplan Contemporary, Buffalo, NY

2017 Cars of the 1970's, 3sec.gallery, Breda, Netherlands

2015 Features, BT&C Gallery, Buffalo, NY

2015 Bird Captures, BT&C Gallery, Buffalo, NY

2014 Summer Show, Galerie 14, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

2014 In Ruins, BT&C Gallery, Buffalo, NY

2013 Animals & Architecture, Galerie Toutou Chic, Metz, France

2012 Invertebrates & Architecture, Marion Art Gallery, SUNY Fredonia, Fredonia, NY

2011 Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed, University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo, ON

2010 Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed, Black & White Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2009 Insect Drawings, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, NY

2008 To Know the Spiders, Black & White Gallery, New York, NY

2008 Other Orders, Albright-Knox Collector’s Gallery, Buffalo, NY

2007 The Stray Shopping Cart Identification System, The Light Factory, Charlotte, NC

2006 The Stray Shopping Cart Identification System, Black & White Gallery, New York, NY

2006 Site Study: Scajaquada Creek, Burchfield Penney Arts Center, Buffalo, NY

2005 Taxonomies, Black & White Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2005 Cleveland & Environs, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland, OH

2004 The Stray Shopping Cart: An Illustrated System of Identification, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY

2003 The Stray Shopping Cart: An Illustrated System of Identification, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT

2002 The Nomadic Urban Architecture of Buffalo, New York (A Taxonomy of Stray Shopping Carts), Big Orbit Gallery/Soundlab, Buffalo, NY

Selected Group & Two Person Exhibitions

2019

• Play/Ground, Resource Art, Medina, NY

2018

• Play/Ground, Resource Art, Medina, NY

• The Corridors Gallery at the Henry Hotel, Buffalo, NY

2017

• Multiverse, Black & White Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2016

• Stop Me if You've Heard This One: Humor and Satire from the Collection, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

• Landscape Features, Black & White Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

• Here, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY

• Artifact and Process, Weeks Gallery, Jamestown, NY

2015

• Amid/In Western New York Part 5, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, NY

• Museum Studies, Berman Museum of Art, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA

• TH&B United, 270 Sherman, Hamilton, ON

2014

• Group Show, Galerie 14, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

• Displacement, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY

• Blow, BT&C Gallery, Buffalo, NY

2013

• Observer of the Impending Change, Spor Klübü, Berlin, Germany

• Bound Requiem, Last Rites Gallery, New York, NY

• Notched Bodies: Insects in Contemporary Art, The Arsenal Gallery, Central Park, New York, NY

• Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), Scottsdale, AZ

• Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles, Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State,Wichita, KS

• Vascular Modes, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, NY

2012

• TH&B2, 270 Sherman, Hamilton, ON

• The World According To:, Black & White Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

• Entmos, Exhibit A, Corning, NY

2010

• Now What?, Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, FL

• Alternating Currents: Beyond/In Western New York Biennial, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY

• ECHO: Sampling Visual Culture, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

2009

• One Every Day, Curators: Printeresting.org, Elizabeth Foundation Project Space, New York, NY

• UpArt: Rooms of Wonder, curators: Chris Mitchell & Barbara Gilbert, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ON

• Exhibition 2012+/The Drop Urban Art Infill, curators: Alexandra Chang & Mie Iwatsuki, New York, NY

• Ecologies of Decay, Artspace, Buffalo, NY

• Commune, curator: Dominique Nahas, Black & White Gallery, New York, NY

2008

• Waste Not, Want Not, Socrates Sculpture Center, Long Island City, Queens, NY

• Sprawling, Shore Institute of The Contemporary Arts, Long Branch, NJ

• Site Visits, curators: Ivan Jurakic, Esther E. Shipman, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON

• Sign/Age II, Armand Bartos Gallery, New York, NY

2007

• Versionfest Invitational, curators: Brian Ulrich & Jon Gitelson, Zhou Art Center, Chicago, IL

2006

• Systems & Propositions, Rochester Contemporary, Rochester, NY

• The Sanctuary and the Scrum, curator: David Hunt, Black and White Gallery, New York, NY

• Young American Artists of Today, Bergen Museum of Arts & Sciences, Paramus, NJ

2005

• Young American Artists of Today, Central House of Artists, Moscow, Russia

• Beyond/In Western New York 2005, Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, NY

2004

• re: source, Art in General, New York, NY

• Crits’ Pix, curator: Lily Wei, Black & White Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Curator

• 2014 Displacement, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY

• 2011 Buffalo on the Bowery, Charles Bank Gallery, New York, NY

Collections

• Buffalo AKG Art Museum

• Burchfield Penney Arts Center

• Margulies Collection at the Warehouse

• The Norton Museum of Art

• Progressive Insurance Collection

Art Fairs

• 2004 Scope Art Miami

• 2005 Scope New York / Scope Miami

• 2008 Next Art Chicago / Aqua Art Fair

• 2010 Pulse Miami

• 2011 Pulse New York / Pulse Los Angeles

• 2016 Pulse Miami

Residencies

• 2005 Spaces World Artists Program, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland, OH

• 2002 International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, NY

 Grants/Awards

• Nancy Graves Foundation 2008 Grant nominee

• Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2007 Award nominee

• Winner Booksellers/Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book title of 2006

Books (author)

• The Stray Shopping Carts Of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification, Revised Edition, Julian Montague, University of Chicago Press, 2023

• The Stray Shopping Carts Of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification, Julian Montague, Abrams IMAGE, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2006

Books (featuring work)

• Finding Forte, Mara Reissberger, Tom Koch, Slanted Publishers, 2022

• Graphic Design x100, Editor: Dorian Lucas, Braun Publishing, 2014

• Imaging Buffalo: Ineffably Urban, Editor: Miriam Paeslack, Ashgate Publishing, 2014

• Fully Booked: Ink on Paper, Editors: R. Klanten, M. Hübner, A. Losowsky, Die Gestalten Verlag, 2013

• THE DARK WOULD language art anthology, edited by Philip Davenport, Apple Pie Editions, 2013

• Typography Sketchbooks, Steven Heller and Lita Talrico, Princeton Architectural Press, 2011

• The Modernist, R. Klanten (Author, Editor), H. Hellige (Editor), Die Gestalten Verlag, 2011

• The Design Entrepreneurs, Interview, Steven Heller and Lita Talrico, Rockport Publishers, Inc., 2008

Books (contributor)

• Celestino Piatti: Alles, was ich male, hat Augen, Everything I paint has eyes, dtv Verlagsgesellschaft, 2021

• 100 bücher die alle designer kennen sollten, René Spitz, Marcel Trauzenberg, aveditions, 2019

Exhibition Catalogs

• Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles, Emily Stamey, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University/University of Washington Press, 2013

• Season Two, essay by Ivan Jurakic, University of Waterloo Art Gallery (UWAG), 2011

• Beyond/In Western New York 2010: Alternating Currents, essay by Scott Propeack, Burchfield Penny Art Center, 2010

• Ecologies of Decay, essay by Allen Shelton, Artspace, Buffalo, NY, 2009

• Prince of the Roving Life: Julian Montague’s Stray Shopping Cart, essay by Steve Hunt, Real Art Ways, Hartford CT, 2006

• Julian Montague: The Stray Shopping Cart Project: Cleveland and Environs, essay by Benjamin Genocchio, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland, OH, 2006

• The Stray Shopping Cart: An Illustrated System of Identification, essay by John Massier, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY, 2004

Selected Articles, Interviews & Reviews

• The festival that revitalizes urban culture in Malaga, El Pais, October 28, 2024

• 7 Art Books to Start the New Year, Hyperallergic, January 4, 2024, Lakshmi Rivera Amin

• Mid Century Book Covers, Slanted #42, November 23

• Cartography of Abandonment, Commonweal Magazine, October 2023, Jonathan Malesic

• Julian Montague’s Top 10 Books on Design, smART Magazine, March 2023, Bronte Cronsberry

• Centerfold, Paperboy Magazine, Issue 2, Winter 2021

• 5 Art Accounts to Follow on Instagram Now, The New York Times, December 2, 2020, Will Heinrich

• Julian Montague My Space, Computer Arts, October 2018

• A Look Back at the Greatest (and Only) Stray Shopping Cart Identification Guide Ever Made, Citylab/The Atlantic (web), January, 27, 2016, Mark Byrnes

• Q & A with Julian Montague, Dwell Magazine (web), April 22, 2013

• State of America, Choi’s Gallery, Vol. 21, February 2013

• State of America Prints, Under Consideration Quarterly, 2013 Q1, 2013

• Volumes From an Imagined Intellectual History of Animals, Architecture and Man, Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, Issue 24, Spring 2013, Julian Montague

• TH&B2: Post Industrial Strength, Canadian Art (web), June 7, 2012

• Beyond/In Western New York, Frieze, Issue 137, March 2011, Steven Stern

• Out of Place, Vogue Italia, January 2011, Mauriuccia Casadio

• Beyond/In Western New York, Art in America, January 2011, Faye Hirsch

• What Now?, The Miami Herald, January 2, 2011, Tom Austin

• Looking Back at ‘Beyond,’ The Buffalo News, December 17, 2010, Colin Dabkowski

• Norton Museum of Art Creates Striking New Exhibition with Pieces from the Miami Beach Fairs, ArtDaily.org, December 16, 2010

• Stray Shopping Carts, Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, Issue 10, Spring 2009, Sonia Britz

• The Stray Shopping Cart Project, Gastronomica, Fall 2008, Julian Montague

• Arachnophilia, New York Magazine, June 9, 2008

• A Natural History of Consumption: The Stray Shopping Carts of Julian Montague, Postmodern Culture, Volume 18, Number 2, January 2008, David Banash

• The Taxonomy of Stray Shopping Carts, The Toronto Star, May 6, 2007, Murray Whyte

• Off his Trolley?, The Independent (UK), April 14, 2007, Genevieve Roberts

• Shopping Cart Book wins ‘Oddest Title,’ Associated Press, April 13, 2007, Jill Lawless

• Abandoned: The Art of the Cart, The New York Times, September 10, 2006, Eve M. Kahn

• One man’s garbage is another man’s artistic treasure, The Buffalo News, July 23, 2006, Charity Vogel

• From Moscow to the Bergen Mall, The New York Times, January 29, 2006, Benjamin Genocchio

• The Stray Shopping Cart Project, Uovo, Issue #10, 2005

• Toronto Shuffles off to Buffalo, Globe & Mail, June 1, 2005, Sarah Milroy

• The Many Faces of Shopping Carts, or the Elegant Insects, Block Magazine, May 2005, Rachel Hymen

• Dateline Brooklyn, Artnet.com, April 15, 2005, Stephen Maine

• Visual Perimeter, TEN by TEN Magazine, Number 10, March 2005

• Stray Shopping Carts inspire Buffalo Artist’s Exhibit, The Plain Dealer, January 21, 2005, Dan Tranberg

• Critic’s Picks, Artnews, January 2005, Meredith Mendelsohn

• Artseen, Crit Pix, Black & White Gallery, The Brooklyn Rail, July/August 2004, Shane McAdams

• Tongue Planted Firmly in Cheek: The first of six artists still under 30 and full of it, Hartford Advocate, December 25, 2003, Patricia Rosoff

• It May Be Minimal, but it Challenges the Intellect, The New York Times, November 30, 2003, Benjamin Genocchio

RADIO INTERVIEWS

• Chris Evans Drivetime Show, BBC Radio 1, Sep 2008

• The Breakfast Show, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, April 17, 2007

• Breakfast with Ross Sully, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Canberra, April 17, 2007

• BBC World Service, April 12, 2007