Uncommon Denominator

In Uncommon Denominator, Nina Katchadourian (American, born 1968) stages a conversation among works from throughout her career, artifacts of her family’s history, and objects drawn from every corner of the Morgan’s vaults. To enlist the taste, imagination, and expertise of others, Katchadourian asked Morgan staff members to explain favorite objects to her. She incorporated many of these into a sequence of clusters in which images and objects echo, contradict, or comment upon one another. The sequence encircles a newly commissioned set of photographs from Katchadourian’s ongoing “Sorted Books” project: stacks of books—selected from the Morgan’s Carter Burden Collection of American Literature—whose titles combine into statements, poems, one-liners, or brief narratives. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog featuring an independent image sequence and an interview with the artist.