In the 1970s, San Francisco sculptor Fletcher Benton proposed that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art hold a competition to make art more accessible to the public. The museum asked more than 90 artist do design creative soapbox derby cars which would then be shown and driven. The standards were deceptively simple. The cars had to be able to coast, steer and break, they must not be wider than 6′ or longer than 17′. The museum offered to pay $100 per car (and tasked another group of artists for trophies for which the museum would pay $35 each.

On a designated day in 1975 and again in 1978, onlookers lined up on McLaren Park’s Shelley Drive to watch the cars (carts?) go by. The 1970s events were recreated in April of 2022, when SFMOMA once again called for cars to participate in the event. Happily, this time, Stink Studios was on hand to produce a short documentary about the project. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

You can learn more about the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on their webite and about Stink Studios on theirs.