Courtesy of the Weisman Art Museum

Untitled, 2007 glass, metal, plastic shavings by Nina Katchadourian

Weisman curator Diane Mullin calls it a distinctly American phenomenon, 20th century artists' persistent fascination with the pedestrian labors, pastimes, language and goods of "common" people. "In its way, it's a revolutionary idea - for artists to turn their attention to the day-to-day activities of ordinary people, to place value on the common over the privileged," she says.

As an example, she points to a piece in the museum's new show, "Common Sense: Art and the Quotidian:" a stately 1941 bronze sculpture of a corn husker by Christian Petersen. "To represent an ordinary farmer in such a monumental way was, itself, provocative; as a piece of public art, a lot of people didn't like it." She says, at the time, people rebelled against the notion of deploying such noble statuary in service of what they saw as wholly unremarkable subject matter.

It's a familiar refrain in the public's response to contemporary art, isn't it? "You call this art?"

A number of the more recent works in the show — a late '60s Warhol Campbell's soup can print, a chalkboard eraser by Joseph Beuys, Nina Katchadourian's salt-and-pepper shakers, and others — play even more explicitly on the tension inherent in that question.

Mullin says that's precisely the point — by placing such “common” stuff at the center of their work, a great many contemporary artists have exploited that ambivalence, felt both by members of the art-viewing public and within art institutions. In so doing, these artists are weighing in on the larger conversation about what art can and should be, whose interests and needs it should serve and reflect.

"Common Sense" consists of about 70 pieces — photography, drawings, sculptures, paintings, audio and video installations — drawn almost entirely from the Weisman's collection. The artists represent a modest sampling of 20th century greats, not to mention a number of forms and media — Marsden Hartley, Jasper Johns, Dorothea Lau, Robert Rauschenberg, Isabel Bishop, Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, Joan Sloan, Lewis Hine and Ben Shahn.

A final note: the photography included in the show, much of it quite recent, is especially strong and worthy of particular attention. Look for Paul Shambroom's wry take on "normal" security precautions in a post-9/11 world, Lewis Hine's elegant portraits of urban poverty from the early years of the 20th century, as well as recent work by local photographers Anthony Marchetti and David Goldes.

"Common Sense: Art and the Quotidian" will be on exhibit at the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum through May 23. You can find information about related tours, lectures, performances and panel discussions on the museum website.