Courtesy of Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

For the first time, the Museum of Modern Art is holding a garage sale. Not that excess Picassos and Pollocks will be flying out the door — sorry! — but a hoard of other stuff will. From Nov. 17 to Nov. 30, the artist Martha Rosler will stock (and restock) the museum’s atrium with 12,000 donated objects, including neck chains, hankies and underwear, that she has gathered for her “Meta-Monumental Garage Sale,” possibly the largest ever — at least in an art space. (The image above is from a similar sale in London in 2005.) Rosler is widely known for her seminal Vietnam War-era collages, “House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home (1967-72),” which are on view elsewhere in the museum, and her sale doubles as a demonstration of the way society values received goods and ideas, and as a commentary on desire for ownership. That’s why she won’t reveal which six charities will receive the proceeds, only that she doesn’t plan to give MoMA — “the Kremlin of the value of art” — a single dime. “I don’t want people walking in there with a sense of virtue,” she says. Haggling, on the other hand, is welcome, and a hired wedding photographer will document the transactions, streamed live, Marina Abramovic style, on moma.org/garagesale under “Martha Rosler Made Me Buy.” “Maybe the garage sale is a metaphor for the mind,” Rosler says. “I find it very stressful.”