What are the opening hours?

Thursday 12pm - 6pm Friday 12pm - 6pm Saturday 12pm - 6pm Sunday 12pm - 6pm

Common Things

A shop of common things made by artists, craftspeople, and descendants of tradition.

08/04/2026

Object Lesson #2 now on Substack! Read about the seemingly unlikely connection, through a 55-gallon oil barrel, between an oil company at the turn of the last century, a widow turned industry leader, a Haitian mechanic turned sculptor and the start of a cut metal art community in Croix des Bouquets, Haiti in the 1940s

07/14/2026

MAKAN x Common Things

A month-long publishing residency.

Both Makan and Common Things share a deep love for objects, cultural exchange, craftsmanship, and the stories held within material culture. Through a curated selection of artist books, printed matter, and objects, Makan is creating a temporary publishing space inside the store and an intimate way to discover contemporary artists and photographers.

Join us for three events throughout the residency 👇

📖 July 18, 7pm to 9pm
Meet the Artist: Samantha Jensen
An evening celebrating the publication of Desert Notes with artist Samantha Jensen.

🎉August 1, 6pm-8pm
MAKAN Turns Three
An evening celebration marking three years of MAKAN. This gathering brings together the artists, collaborators, readers, and friends who’ve shaped the journey so far.

✂️August 13, 6pm-8pm
Postcards from Taipei
Postcard-Making Workshop with Ibi Ibrahim
A hands-on collage workshop using photographs from the Taipei publication. Through collage, cutting, layering, and composition, participants will create original postcards exploring place, architecture, memory, and belonging. All materials provided, no experience necessary. DM for details.

06/15/2026

In a world that moves as fast as ours, is there anything left to learn from a material as old as silk? Read about Common Things’ first Object Lessons post on Substack. Link in bio.

06/09/2026

We invite you to come to our next gathering with textile artist Nikita Shah .untitle on June 13th from 4pm to 6pm. She will share her knowledge of Kalamkari, a 3,000-year-old hand-painted textile tradition currently practiced in Srikalahasti, India. Following its traditional methods of using a bamboo kalam (pen) and natural dyes sourced from minerals and plants, Nikita brings together a practice of visual art, sculpture, design and pedagogy.

05/30/2026

There is something quietly transformative about making an object by hand.

Join us on June 6th at Common Things for a Painted in Wax Candle Workshop with Jia , part of an ongoing series that explores making as a way of noticing space, material, and attention.

Together, we will shape, assemble, and layer wax by hand, creating two candles to take home: a sculptural pillar candle adorned with wax flowers and a hand-painted candle built through layers of colored wax.

Painted in Wax Candle Workshop
Saturday, June 6, 2026
11:00 AM–1:00 PM

No prior experience is necessary.
All materials and tools will be provided.
Spaces are limited.

Secure your seat here:
https://www.jiaqi.studio/events/candle-workshop-by-jia

05/19/2026

The books in the room are in conversation.

Alongside Rhea Karam's artist books, made from concrete, paper, and the weight of 1982, Common Things is also holding a selection of publications from Wendy's Subway that speak the same language.

Nowhere Near by Miko Revereza moves through Los Angeles, the Philippines, and Mexico City, excavating the silences that shape personal and historical memory in exile.

Abu Jildeh and Al-Armeet recovers an anti-colonial insurgency in Palestine through text, drawing, and archival documents, history as counter-record, wrested back into print. English language translation by Jumana Kayyali and May Jayyusi.

A Grammar Built with Rocks brings together feminist-decolonial artists tracing the relationship between bodies and land, asking how creative practice becomes a form of place-making when place has been taken. Edited by .halajian and

Each of these books insists on the same thing Rhea's work does: that form is not incidental. That the way a story is held, in concrete, in collage, in archival document, in mistranslation, is part of the story itself.

Books as Objects, Books as Memory
Through May 20 · 76 E 7th St, East Village
Panel discussion on May 20th, 6 to 8pm, free & open to all.

05/18/2026

Books as Objects, Books as Memory is closing with a conversation.

Join us Tuesday, May 20th (6–8pm) at Common Things, East Village, as Rhea Karam and Hannah Yukiko Pierce of Small Editions discuss memory, material, and what it means to hold a story in your hands.
Concrete. Paper. Weight. Form.

📍 76 E 7th St, New York NY
🗓️ May 20, 6–8pm
Free & open to all

05/07/2026

Join us at Common Things for “Books as Objects, Books as Memory”—proudly part of the official NYCxDESIGN Festival programming from May 14-20!

This exhibition reclaims the artist book as an active instrument of memory. Centered on two works by Rhea Karam , published by Small Editions , the display explores the weight of history and the power of design as a witness to rupture.

Join us for a reception and talk with Rhea Karam and Hannah Pierce from Small Editions in store on May 20th 6pm-8pm

DesignAsWitness

04/27/2026

Rubber Bands and a Shoebox.

Paul Labonté, , has been photographing the things people keep and the things they carry for over twenty years. He trained in darkrooms. He made books before he made anything else. His photographs carry the weight of someone who knows that looking is a practice, not a reflex.
The image on this puzzle is a Nike Air box, opened, full of rubber-banded bills, held in two hands. It is not a subtle photograph. It is also not what it looks like at first. Sit with it long enough and it becomes something quieter such as an object about aspiration, about saving, about the particular meaning a shoebox holds when you grew up treating it like a safe.

500 pieces. 17 by 25 inches. In the shop & online now.

12/03/2025

Luminesce: Holding Light
A Holiday Pop Up with Larry Ossei-Mensah

This December 10 from 5pm to 8pm, we welcome Larry Ossei- Mensah back to Common Things for his third ceramic presentation this year. It feels like a return we look forward to, a gathering around light, clay, and the quiet attention that shapes his work.

Luminesce: Holding Light brings together new pieces from Larry’s ongoing series, each one guided by the simple question of how light can be held, reflected, and felt. These works deepen his exploration of form and texture and the closeness of everyday objects. A vessel catching the slow glow of afternoon. A surface remembering the touch of a hand. A warmth that lingers.

Arriving in time for the gifting season, these pieces offer more than a seasonal moment. They invite stillness in a month that moves quickly. They create a place to gather, to linger, and to rediscover beauty in what is subtle, familiar, and made with care.

We hope you will join us in celebrating Larry’s work and the quiet brightness it brings into the room and perhaps into the hands of someone you love.

Address

76 East 7th Street (ground Floor)
New York, NY
10003

Opening Hours

Thursday	12pm - 6pm
Friday	12pm - 6pm
Saturday	12pm - 6pm
Sunday	12pm - 6pm

Telephone

+16463459693

Website

https://common-things.com/

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