Art | The Common

A Contentious Legacy: Art from Soviet Ukraine

October 27, 2025 Issue 30, Issue 30 Art, Studio, Ukraine Portfolio

More than thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independent states that emerged from its territory continue to grapple with its legacies. In Ukraine, this struggle has unfolded amidst a political and cultural war waged by Russia. As Vladimir Putin’s regime weaponizes the shared Soviet past in its attempts to erase Ukraine’s nationhood, the Soviet legacy remains the subject of heated debate among Ukrainians. While some identify “Sovietness” with “Russianness” and seek to remove it from the national narrative, others attempt to reclaim their Soviet legacy, emphasizing the agency of Ukrainians who created it.

September 2025 Poetry Feature: Earth Water Fire Poems, a Conversation

September 25, 2025 Poetry

Poems and sculptures by LISA ASAGI

This is a conversation with whales, clay, and poetry.

A wonderment with whales began in a childhood alivened by the early days of the Save the Whales movement and stories from my father of mysterious encounters on overnight boating trips. This fascination resurfaced seven years ago when I found myself working with my hands—clay sculpture and stand-up paddling led to long overdue reconnections with both earth and sea. Research deepened my curiosity: before the centuries of whaling, very different kinds of relationships existed between whales and humans. Here in the 21st century, what’s possible? These pieces are part of an ongoing series of rememberings, imaginings, longings, and offerings.

— Lisa Asagi

Return of the Puffin

October 21, 2024 Essays, Issue 28, Issue 28 Art, Issue 28 Essays, Studio

By JAMES K. BOYCE

Photos by TIANNE STROMBECK

Against This Earth, We Knock

September 30, 2024 China Portfolio, Poetry, Studio

This piece is part of a special portfolio about youth and contemporary culture in China. Read more from the portfolio here.

By JINJIN XU

I try to feel this is home ¹

I don’t think

I am a foreigner ²
I was not supposed to be living ³

Exploring the Intersection: Coptic Motifs and Social Realism in Eritrean Art

April 22, 2024 Issue 27, Issue 27 Art, Studio

By MICHAEL ADONAI

Waidel (2008), acrylic on canvas (20.5 x 90.5 cm)

Lightning Talk on I-90

April 10, 2024 Essays, Studio

By ALI SHAPIRO

Lightning Talk on I-90 by Ali Shapiro

Ali Shapiro’s work has appeared in Gertrude, Popula, PrairieSchooner, The Offing, The Rumpus, and Electric Literature, among others. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan, and now teaches writing at the Stamps School of Art & Design. Read more at www.ali-shapiro.com.

USA Portraits

November 6, 2023 Farmworker, Issue 26, Issue 26 Art, Studio

Artwork and introduction by NARSISO MARTINEZ

Tender Leaves (2021). Ink, charcoal, and gold leaf on cardboard produce box (52.50 x 62.50 in). Photo by Yubo Dong.

Introduction

Through my art, I intend to highlight the difficult reality faced by American farmworkers, a workforce essential to American life consisting of men and women almost wholly of insecure immigration status. This status makes them vulnerable to predatory practices from agribusiness. I am a former farmworker myself; after immigrating to the United States from a small community outside of Oaxaca, Mexico, I worked nine seasons in the fields of Eastern Washington state to pay for my undergraduate and graduate degrees.

I seek to honor farmworkers and reveal the difficult working conditions they face. Their portraits and scenes from the fields are executed on found produce boxes. When I nest images of farmworkers amidst the colorful brand names and illustrations of agricultural corporations, I hope to help the viewer make a connection, or a disconnection rather, and start creating consciousness about the people that farm their food.

The Story of a Box

May 8, 2023 Essays, Issue 25, Issue 25 Essays

By JEFFREY HARRISON

Marcel Duchamp's Boite: a box that folds out to reveal miniatures of various art works.

PARTIAL VIEW OF RESTORED HARRISON BOÎTE. MARCEL DUCHAMP (AMERICAN 1887-1968), BOX IN A VALISE (BOÎTE-EN-VALISE) FROM OR BY MARCEL DUCHAMP OR RROSE SÉLAVY, 1963 (SERIES E ). CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM: GIFT OF ANNE W. HARRISON AND FAMILY IN MEMORY OF AGNES SATTLER HARRISON AND ALEXINA “TEENY” SATTLER DUCHAMP, 2016.305 © ASSOCIATION MARCEL DUCHAMP / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NY / ADAGP, PARIS 2023. IMAGE COURTESY OF CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM, PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB DESLONGCHAMPS

“Everything important that I have done can be put into a little suitcase.”
—Marcel Duchamp, Life magazine, 1952

For many years I hardly told anyone that my grandmother’s sister Teeny was married to Marcel Duchamp, and before that to Pierre Matisse, the art dealer son of Henri. Friends I’ve known all my life have stopped me in disbelief when these facts have come up in passing—a disbelief arising not from the facts themselves but from my never having shared them. The first time I ever mentioned the connection to anyone outside the family, I was in college, sitting in the Hungarian Pastry Shop on Amsterdam Avenue with my professor, the poet David Shapiro. “Wait,” he said, “Teeny Duchamp is your great aunt?!” I was surprised he knew exactly who she was.