While everyone can admire the works in the List Visual Arts Center's Annual Student Loan Art Exhibition, MIT students have the added thrill of entering a lottery to temporarily "own" the works for the school year. The collection includes signed original posters, prints and photographs by 20th-century artists such as Berenice Abbott, Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell and Andy Warhol.
Each year new pieces are added to the collection. New works this year include lithograph, enamel and graphite on paper, text on crocheted paper, color photography, cyanotype and color aquatint by artists Shellburne Thurber, Sarah Sze, Adam Ross, Andrew Spence, Richard Tuttle, Lee Boroson, Sheila Pepe and Seong Chun.
John Rexine, the List Center's new fine arts registrar, calls the Student Loan Collection "special and quite unique." Comparing it to a similar program he'd administered at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, he noted, "Here the quality of the Loan Art collection is much higher, as is the student participation. And the annual addition of about 10 new works guarantees that the collection remains fresh, interesting and relevant."
Full time registered MIT students can enter the lottery at the List Center by filling in a registration card with the names of their three favorite works of art from the collection. Only one card per student or group is accepted for consideration. The lottery will he held on Monday, Sept. 18 and the winners' names will be posted at 6pm on the doors of the gallery. Art can then be picked up for the next three days, and on Friday, Sept. 22, a free-for-all will be held so that students not selected by lottery may choose from unclaimed work. Exhibition hours are 12-6pm daily.
Students (and others) can get a sneak peek at the newest art that will be available for loan in upcoming years on the third floor of the Student Center. For more information about the program, call x3-4680.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 13, 2000.
