The Public Art Collection at MIT

With the continued growth of the Institute’s public art collection, MIT’s campus has become a destination for art lovers. In order to support the growing interest in the collection from the community at large, the List Center recently launched a new MIT student led tour program, and a new expanded public art map coupled with a mobile web app. You can visit listart.oncell.com for a GPS enabled self guided tour of the collection.

The public art collection and exhibitions at the List Center are always free and open to the general public.  To schedule a group tour contact Emily A. Garner, Campus and Public Programs Manager, (email hidden; JavaScript is required).

Public Art Update

In 2019 Alicja Kwade was commissioned to create Against the Run, 2019  a new Percent-for-Art work for MIT’s campus public art collection.  This sculptural work, sited at Kendall Square Site 4 of MIT’s Kendall Square Initiative is a functioning clock that confounds viewers expectations.  The clock face itself rotates counterclockwise, moving in direct opposition to the second hand, which appears to stand still. The minute and hour hands function normally, and the clock indicates the correct time despite simultaneously running in reverse.  In this work Kwade challenges our perception of familiar objects and invites us to reimagine time and its visual representation.

In 2018 two percent-for art commissions by Olafur Eliasson and Nick Mauss were completed and added to the Institute’s Public Art Collection. 

Olafur Eliasson’s Northwest Passage is situated on the ceiling of the breezeway of Building 12, MIT.nano.  Eliasson’s installation spans 90 feet and comprised of 7 LED rings hanging from and reflected in 30 polished stainless-steel panels, welcomes visitors to the building and engages the pedestrian path on the north side of the complex. 

Nick Mauss’s Dispersed Events is comprised of seven ceramic tin-glazed murals of varying scales installed throughout the atria and stairways of I.M. Pei’s Landau Chemical Engineering Building (1976).  Conceived as an ensemble of works spanning throughout multiple floors, these murals illuminate the concrete interiors of the historic building and activate the spaces of passage, engaging how a viewer moves through and pauses in this unique and complex building.