Dear Friends,
As we finish out another season at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, I am grateful for this opportunity to share a report of the past year. In this December’s letter, we look back on the period from July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023.
The mission at the List Center has always been and will remain, to present the work of artists who expand the way we experience the world around us. Indeed, boundary-pushing is inherent to the work we and MIT do, but care, responsiveness, and growth is paramount to the success of our team, the artists we work with, and the communities we serve.
We were thrilled to welcome audiences to the 25th presentation of the List Project exhibition program with the first institutional solo exhibition by Azza El Siddique in June, 2022. The occasion of the 25th exhibition in the series also gave us a chance to reflect on some of the artists that we’ve presented during past 10 years, including the early presentations of Pauline Curnier Jardin, Kambui Olujimi, Adam Pendleton, and Sergei Tcherepin.
In August, 2022, we welcomed the full MIT community back to school with the Student Lending Art Program. There were 22 new works added to the collection and just under 600 works were lent to students for the academic year.
Fall began with the presentation of Symbionts: Contemporary Artists and the Biosphere, which opened in October. This group show featured 14 international artists and exemplified the type of scholarly work for which the List Center is best known. Examining experimental practices that blur the boundaries between art and science, Symbionts invited viewers to reexamine human connections to the planet’s biosphere through the lens of symbiosis, or “with living.” The exhibition was accompanied by an award-winning catalogue designed by Omnivore and published by MIT Press that featured new thought on the topic.
The spring of 2023 brought new exhibitions and the Wasserman Forum. The forum topic this year was Altered Access, convening artists, educators, and curators to discuss current disability discourse within the arts and museum institutions. The keynote speaker was Park McArthur, who presented a work commissioned by the List Center called Day, 2023, a love letter against ongoing isolation. It is available to view on our YouTube page and is a gorgeous presentation by the artist.
I hope you enjoy this look back, and that we see you on campus and in our galleries soon.
Wishing you a happy, healthy, art-filled 2024. We so appreciate your support of our work.
With all our best,
