MIT art lending program put contemporary works in dorm rooms

Have you ever seen a particularly captivating painting hanging on a wall in a museum and wished you could bring it home? At the List Visual Arts Center, lucky Massachusetts Institute of Technology students get to do just that.

The student art lending program, which started in 1969, relies on a lottery system. Undergraduate and graduate students whose numbers come up may choose an artwork to take home for the academic year. And it’s completely free.

This year, 530 students left with new pieces to cherish.

The center’s Student Lending Art Collection hung the prints and photographs in a large gallery space that students browsed during their assigned pick up times Monday, Sept. 16 through Friday, Sept. 20 to choose the pieces they wanted to take home.

Maria Lostumbo, MIT Permanent Collections Registrar, said the center acquires 12 to 15 new works every year for the program and focuses on artists of color, women and those who have exhibited at the List Center previously.

After a student chooses their work, the piece goes through a condition report and the student signs a loan agreement and learns how to properly handle their work. They are then in charge of installing the piece in their home.

Lostumbo started at her position in March, so this was her first time seeing students collect their works.

“I'm excited to see the students be very excited, because when I was here for the return, they were very appreciative, and a lot of them didn't want to give up their works, but they did,” she said. “So I'm excited to see the opposite end of that and see the students find something they really connect with, and then bring it home.”

Tiwa Eisape, a graduate student, first won the art lottery two years ago and found a photograph that grew on him the more he looked at it.

“It was a really nice night vision kind of photograph,” he said. “I just had it up on my wall and just like really fell in love with it over the year, so I'm kind of looking for something that makes me feel like that.”

He left this time with “West L.A. Apartments” by James Welling, a dimly lit photograph of a row of apartment buildings at night.

Bridget Schippers, a graduate student, found the program through an email about events on campus and toured the List Center’s collection before applying. When she was selected, she said she was excited to add a “higher quality” piece to the gallery wall in her apartment.

Schippers landed on “Censorship Predella” by Don Nice.

“I’m studying political science, so I was drawn to the piece about censorship that had a political message,” she said. “And then also, the room that I want to put it in has this exact same orange, so it just seemed perfect.”

Gwyneth Jackman, marketing coordinator at the center, interviewed students in their homes about the works they chose last school year.

“I really felt like every student had a deeper relationship with the work after having lived with it for a period of time,” said Jackman. “So I think that they really care for these pieces. And I think that they know how wonderful of an experience and opportunity this is.”