February 6, 2027 - May 23, 2027
American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016

Common Things: Art and Objects in Public Life is an exhibition, public convening, and publication developed in partnership with the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College and the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, DC. Responding to the work of political thinker Hannah Arendt, the project explores what Arendt describes as the “world of things,” the objects around which public life unfolds. Bringing together invited artists and juried works selected through an open call, the exhibition reflects on what it means to share a world in common with others who see and experience the world differently from one another. The exhibition provides the foundation for a one-day public salon emphasizing close looking, dialogue, and collective inquiry among artists, scholars, poets, and the public. These exchanges extend through a small-format publication featuring new writing that broadens access to the project’s ideas and situates objects, artworks, and spaces as shared grounds for the practice of democratic thinking.

Image on left: View of the Dr. Joann Crisp-Ellert Gallery at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, the anticipated site of Common Things.