Summer Plans at the List Center

A black freestanding clock with a restrained modern design

Alicja Kwade, Against the Run, 2019. MIT Collection Commissioned with MIT Percent-for-Art funds. Photo by Charles Mayer Photography.

Dear Friends,

Over the past few weeks, we’ve taken a pause from our typical social media posts and List At Home newsletters in order to listen, learn, and reflect. While the museum remains closed, we know that our Instagram and newsletters are how we stay connected and engaged. Moving forward, the List Center will continue to use our platforms to amplify the voices and creativity of Black artists and to share anti-racism resources. This is a movement, not a moment. 

As a university museum, we often slow down over the summer while our campus is quiet. In the coming months, you may hear from us less frequently, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t here for you as a site for exploration and reflection. We will continue to share highlights from our collections and exhibitions, we will share news about List Artists around the world, and we will pass the mic to members of the List Center staff and community for Instagram Takeovers.

While we were hoping to re-open our galleries this summer to share Christine Sun Kim and Colored People Time, the prevalence of COVID-19 has kept our doors closed. These shows opened in early February and we are saddened that our crew will begin the de-install process in July without reopening to the public. Looking ahead, we don’t know exactly when we will be able to safely open our galleries, but we look forward to sharing our updated exhibition schedule and reopening plan with you as soon as possible! 

As always, we love hearing from you. Tell us what you’d like to see, learn, and do with the List Center this summer. 

Thank you for being part of the List Visual Arts Center community!

Exhibitions Update

Before we say good-bye to our spring exhibitions, we hope you can dive back in for a virtual look at Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts, Banal Presents and Christine Sun Kim: Off the Charts. In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting highlights from these exhibitions on our Instagram.

Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts, Banal Presents

Colored People Time (CPT) offers a profound exploration into how the history of chattel slavery and colonialism in America not only shaped the foundations of our country but exists in our present moment and impacts our future. The group exhibition travels to the List Center from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, where it was organized by Associate Curator Meg Onli.

An orange gallery wall features artwork by Sable Elyse Smith, a crayon drawing of a rainbow, and an installation featuring blue buttons in the foreground.

Christine Sun Kim: Off the Charts 

Christine Sun Kim works in sound, performance, drawing, installation, and video. She considers the sonic as a multi-sensory phenomenon, one whose properties are auditory, visual, and spatial, as well as socially determined. Much of her work is invested in uncovering the politics of voice, listening, and language, troubling throughout conceptions of sound as being inextricably tethered to hearing and the implicit authority of spoken over signed language.

Close up of blue and red cushions and 2 headphones in front of 2 framed drawings of hands forming signs for the “ALPHABET”

Public Art is Always Open!

Explore Public Art and Architecture

Take a walking tour of the campus collection with our GPS-enabled Mobile Web App. The app features self guided campus walking tour routes, as well as interviews with selected artist and architects. Access the app for your mobile phone. 

Matt Johnson's Untitled(Swan) sculpture of a warped bent metal train track is pictured in front of MIT campus buildings.