MIT List Visual Arts Center

MIT List Visual Arts Center The MIT List Visual Arts Center is respected as one of the most significant university art galleries. The contemporary art museum at MIT.

Jaylee Bouwhuis is a rising Sophomore pursuing a degree in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary sciences. We had the chance...
08/28/2026

Jaylee Bouwhuis is a rising Sophomore pursuing a degree in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary sciences.

We had the chance to chat with Bouwhuis, who participated in the Student Lending Art Program during the 2025-2026 academic year and selected “Color Form No. 32” (1955) by Michael Loew.

Read the entire interview on our website to learn about the selection process (from 700+ works) and what it means to live with an original work of art.

In Pap Souleye Fall’s new installation “NOMANISANISLAND REDIRTRENDER” (2026), the world of “DEAD PIXEL” takes shape in s...
08/23/2026

In Pap Souleye Fall’s new installation “NOMANISANISLAND REDIRTRENDER” (2026), the world of “DEAD PIXEL” takes shape in sculptures made out of e-waste collected from MIT’s campus, wooden scaffolding, and organic papier-mâché objects embedded with found material.

Inspired by work they began in 2023 while a resident at the Recycled Artist in Residency (RAIR) in Philadelphia, the installation places DEAD PIXEL and THE DATA COLLECTOR in what Fall describes as “the endless digestive system of digital space”: a structure that accounts for both virtual worlds and their material effects, such as data centers, electronic waste, and landfills.

“NOMANISANISLANDREDIRTRENDER” transforms residues of hyper-consumption into a lush environment where things that were thrown away come back into view.

Step into the gallery and learn more about "List Projects 35: Pap Souleye Fall," on view through November 29, 2026.

Gabriel Bonnamy, a Master in City Planning student at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, focuses his work o...
08/20/2026

Gabriel Bonnamy, a Master in City Planning student at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, focuses his work on challenging economic growth.

We had the chance to chat with Bonnamy, who participated in the Student Lending Art Program during the 2025–2026 academic year and selected Berenice Abbott’s “Triboro Bridge.”

Read the entire interview on our website to learn about the selection process (from 700+ works) and what it means to live with an original work of art.

READ NOW: https://listart.mit.edu/about/mit/slap/student-stories

New Acquisition Highlight: Nayland Blake’s “Untitled,” (2000) was acquired this year into our Student Lending Collection...
08/18/2026

New Acquisition Highlight: Nayland Blake’s “Untitled,” (2000) was acquired this year into our Student Lending Collection!

Created in 2000, this intimate graphite drawing on paper offers a glimpse into Nayland Blake’s broader multidisciplinary practice, which encompasses sculpture, performance, and video.

Blake presented the exhibition “No Wrong Holes: Thirty Years of Nayland Blake” at the List Center in 2020.

In celebration of the List Center’s 40th anniversary, Blake also provided creative direction for a special reception held on April 11, 2026.

View the entire Student Lending Collection: https://listart.mit.edu/art-artists/slap

Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our Campaign for Public Art, MIT’s inaugural Percent-for-Art commission got a mak...
08/14/2026

Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our Campaign for Public Art, MIT’s inaugural Percent-for-Art commission got a makeover for the first time in sixteen years!

Louise Nevelson’s “Transparent Horizon” (1975) was beautifully restored this past summer, preserving the work for future generations of the MIT community and visitors to enjoy.

Thank you to the team at Daedalus Conservation for all of your labor and care for the piece.

New Acquisition Highlight: Daniela Rivera’s “She Never Kicked the Ball,” 2025 recently joined our Student Lending Art Co...
08/10/2026

New Acquisition Highlight: Daniela Rivera’s “She Never Kicked the Ball,” 2025 recently joined our Student Lending Art Collection from Caira Editions and will be on view next month in our galleries!

Rivera’s etching, “She Never Kicked the Ball,” refers to her research in Chuquicamata, the world’s largest open pit copper mine. Unlike the male miners, the women living in the camps could not access health care, despite the grave environmental conditions. Through organization with the mining camp soccer team, they gained access to political representation as the female branch of the Cobreloa soccer team.

They never stepped onto the field or kicked a ball. However this visibility brought the possibility of presenting candidates for the largest labor union in the country.

Rivera’s larger series by the same title, started in 2021, represents this incredible history through work that uses a soccer ball as a drawing tool. She bounces the ball (with her hands - they never kicked the ball) onto surfaces to make marks.

See more of Rivera’s work in her current exhibition “Hacia Cuando (To When)” on view at Mass MoCA.

08/06/2026

MIT Students… something exciting returns later this month! 🖼️

The 2026 Student Lending Art Program Exhibition will be on view in our galleries featuring over 500 original works of art.

To borrow artwork from the collection, sign up for the lottery starting August 31, 2026 for enrolled undergraduate and graduate MIT students.

Visit the List Center website to learn more.

It’s the final weekend to catch our current exhibition “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form” ‼️...
07/31/2026

It’s the final weekend to catch our current exhibition “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form” ‼️

Emily Watlington writes for the recent feature in Art in America, “the exhibition quickly expands to consider costs beyond the monetary. It reveals not just what the show spent, but those human costs that capitalism doesn’t count. The artists here illuminate the ways every one of us is indebted to others. Capitalism, though, renders this interdependency—life-sustaining, reproductive labor—invisible.”

Our galleries are open everyday this weekend from 12–6PM. The List Center is always free and open to all.

Pictured: 1–2, 4) Exhibition view: “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form,” MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, 2026. Photo: Dario Lasagni
3) Ghislaine Leung, “Maintenance,” 2025. Score: The exhibition space is left as it is. Installation view: “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form,” MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, 2026. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Dario Lasagni
5) Goldin+Senneby, “M&A,” 2013. Performance, props, algorithmic trading strategy. With Jo Randerson (playwright), Paul Leong (investment banker), Jacky Mallett (computer scientist), Anna Heymowska (set designer), Johan Hjerpe (graphic designer), and Jon Vellante (actor). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Committee on Media and Performance Art, 2016. Installation view: “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form,” MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2026. Courtesy MIT List Visual Arts Center. Photo: Melissa Blackall
6) Cassie Thornton, “Education Delivers Students,” 2011. Installation view: “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form,” MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, 2026. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Dario Lasagni

“List Projects 35: Pap Souleye Fall” is now on view in our Bakalar gallery!In the recent issue of Boston Compass, Assist...
07/30/2026

“List Projects 35: Pap Souleye Fall” is now on view in our Bakalar gallery!

In the recent issue of Boston Compass, Assistant Curator, Marina Caron, led an interview with featured artist Pap Souleye Fall.

Fall explains how, “The nonlinear story of ‘DEAD PIXEL’ comes out little by little. In the beginning, I wanted a chapter to come out each time I did a show. Then, once I got into making the wooden books in my installations, it started to land in terms of how I wanted people to interact with it. The books spoke to the sort of intimacy of comics and narrative.”

READ MORE: https://issuu.com/bostoncccompass/docs/compass_issue_193
Copies are also available at the front desk in the List Center atrium.

The List Center honors the memory of artist Betye Saar (1926–2026) and her contributions to the List Visual Arts Center....
07/28/2026

The List Center honors the memory of artist Betye Saar (1926–2026) and her contributions to the List Visual Arts Center.

In 1987, Saar completed a month long artist residency at the List Center to create new works that combined an interest in a variety of spiritual forces with a curiosity about the possibility for magic in technology.

Additionally, Saar’s work ,"As The World Turns," (1986-87) is part of the MIT Student Lending Art Collection, which is available to MIT students to live with for the academic year.

Pictured: 1) Installation view, “Betye Saar: Mojotech (Artist-in-Residence),” MIT List Visual Arts Center, 1987. Archival slide; 2-3) Archival Slide, Betye Saar, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 1986; 4) Betye Saar, “As The World Turns,” 1986-87

Address

20 Ames Street Building E15, Atrium Level
Cambridge, MA
02142

Opening Hours

Tuesday 12pm - 6pm
Wednesday 12pm - 7pm
Thursday 12pm - 7pm
Friday 12pm - 6pm
Saturday 12pm - 6pm
Sunday 12pm - 6pm

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+16172534680

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