Arts at MIT Exhibitions
In response to COVID-19, the MIT campus and exhibition spaces are closed until further notice.
Leah Talatinian
Christine Sun Kim: Off the Charts, Installation view, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, 2020. Photo: Peter Harris Studio.
Just as MIT pushes at the frontiers of scientific inquiry, it is the mission of the List Visual Arts Center to explore challenging, intellectually inquisitive, contemporary art making in all media.
The List Visual Arts Center also maintains and develops a Permanent Collection that includes dozens of publicly-sited sculptures by such artists as Henry Moore, Anish Kapoor, Cai Guo Qiang, and Alexander Calder.
Open Tuesday-Sunday
Building E15, Atrium Level
20 Ames Street
MIT Museum. Credit: Judy Daniels.
The MIT Museum invites you to explore invention, ideas, and innovation. Through interactive exhibitions, public programs, experimental projects and its renown collections, the MIT Museum showcases the fascinating world of MIT, and inspires people of all ages about the possibilities and opportunities offered by science and technology. Their collections include the Architecture & Design Collection, the Holography Collection and a digital collection of renowned MIT professor Harold "Doc" Edgerton's work.
Building N51
Close up view of project under construction on a table in the MIT Museum Studio.
MIT Museum Studio and Compton Gallery
Located in the heart of campus under the big dome, the MIT Museum Studio and Compton Gallery is a changing exhibition space where visitors encounter a wide range of exhibitions that encompass the varied fields of science, technology, architecture, history, and art.
Building 10, Room 150
Students explore the MIT Student Lending Art Program Exhibition. Image courtesy of the List Visual Arts Center.
Student Lending Art Program
The Student Lending Art Program is a unique and popular MIT tradition that allows MIT students borrow original works of art from the MIT List Visual Arts Center. Explore the online web portal to peruse the works and to learn more about the history of this exciting program and collection.
Installation view of the 2018 Schnitzer Prize Recipients Exhibition in the MIT Wiesner Student Art Gallery.
Wiesner Student Gallery
The Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Gallery was established as a gift from the Class of 1983 to honor the former president of MIT, Jerome Wiesner, for his involvement in and support of the arts at the Institute. The gallery is a place for students to express and exhibit their artistic endeavors, both academic and co-curricular. Additionally, the gallery serves as a major exhibit space for student artists who are supported by the Grants Program of the Council for the Arts at MIT.
77 Mass Ave, Cambridge
Building W20, Second Floor
Hart Nautical Gallery via Creative Commons. Credit Joanna Poe.
Hart Nautical Gallery
Forty of the Museum's finest full-hull ship models depict one thousand years of ship building, from a fifteenth century iron-clad warship to the swiftest clipper ships. Also included is an extraordinary model of N.G. Herreshoff's Reliance – winner of the 1903 America's Cup.
Keller Gallery. Credit: Judy Daniels.
Keller Gallery
As part of the continuing development of common spaces for the Department of Architecture, a new gallery opened this fall on the fourth floor of Building 7, close to the architecture design studios, the school's new fabrication lab, the Steam Café and the Long Room, where all the department's lecture series are held.
Open Monday – Saturday
Building 7, Room 408
Koch Institute
Koch Institute Public Galleries
The Koch Institute Public Galleries were established to connect the community in Kendall Square and beyond with the work of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Within the Galleries, visitors can explore current cancer research projects, examine striking biomedical images, hear first-person reflections on cancer and cancer research, and investigate the historical, geographical and scientific contexts out of which the Koch Institute emerged.
Building 76, Ground Floor
Maihaugen Gallery (MIT Libraries)
The MIT Libraries' Maihaugen Gallery offers a window into MIT's remarkable special collections. Ongoing exhibits showcase historical documents, photographs, rare books, maps, artwork and more from the Institute Archives and the Libraries' unique collections.
Open Monday – Thursday
Adjacent to the Institute Archives at 14N-118
Jerome B. Wiesner: Visionary, Statesman, Humanist. Media Lab. Photo: Sharon Lacey.
Media Lab Galleries
The first floor of the Media Lab complex houses a gallery and images of the building are available for viewing on the web.
MIT Building E14, 20 Ames Street
Olafur Eliasson, Northwest Passage, 2018. Stainless steel, LED lights, diffusers. An MIT Percent-for-Art Commission for MIT.nano. Photo: Anton Grassl
MIT's noted public art program administered by the MIT List Visual Arts Center may be enjoyed by MIT denizens and visitors alike. The program began to take shape in 1961 when Mr. and Mrs Samuel A. Marx commissioned MIT's first outdoor sculpture, Dimitri Hadzi's bronze Elmo (MIT). This work inspired many subsequent gifts that have furnished MIT with numerous outstanding examples of work by major artists.
See MIT's Public Art Collection in person or on the web via an interactive map on the List Visual Arts Center's website.
2019 CAMIT Grant Recipient, MIT/Reflex Letterpress exhibition in SA+P's Rotch Library. Credit: HErickson/MIT.
Rotch Library Exhibitions
The Rotch Library exhibition space is open to the general public with works exhibited and curated by MIT affiliates (students, student groups, staff, faculty, alumni).
Open Saturday – Sunday
Building 7-238