A “common crossing” is a ubiquitous railroad switch. Laid down horizontally, inserted in the railroad tracks, these ‘frogs’ guide trains crossing from one line to the next. Just as Duchamp transfigured an ordinary men’s urinal into an artwork, by rotating Fountain ninety degree out of the everyday world, so by revolving her ‘frogs’ into a vertical position, Vitale thrusts these bulky readymades into our art world. How strange that these banal artifacts, transformed so minimally by the artist who has chosen them, can thus become affecting works of art.