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Students opt for art from MIT's collection

Why tack up a mass-produced poster when you can share your dorm room with an original work by a well-known contemporary artist?

For nearly 30 years, full-time MIT undergraduate and graduate students have taken advantage of the opportunity to borrow artwork from the List Visual Arts Center's Student Loan Art Collection to hang in their living spaces and offices. The annual Student Loan Art Exhibition, currently on public view in the List Center galleries (Building E15) through Tuesday, Sept. 16, allows students to view and enter a lottery for more than 300 signed posters, prints and photographs by 20th-century artists such as Berenice Abbott, Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell and Andy Warhol.

ADDITIONS TO COLLECTION

Since 1988, 113 new works of art have been added to the Student Loan Collection through the Student Center Preview Program supported by the List Center and the Campus Activities Complex. This program, created during the renovation of the Student Center, offers a public view of the new pieces acquired for the Student Loan Collection.

The eight to 12 new artworks selected and purchased by the List Center's curatorial staff each year are displayed for one year on the third floor of the Student Center. The MIT community is thus given a chance to enjoy the works before they find their annual homes in students' private spaces. Students can also get a 'sneak peak' at the pieces that will be available through the lottery in upcoming years.

"It's a win-win situation," said Jill Aszling, fine arts registrar with the LVAC. "The Student Center gets a new art exhibition every year and it's a means for us to expand the Student Loan Collection."

Phillip Walsh, director of the Campus Activities Complex, noted that the Student Center's annual display "adds to the vitality and life of the Student Center."

The lottery will he held on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Winners' names will be posted at 6pm on the doors of the gallery. Works can be picked up September 18-19. For more information, call x3-4680.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 10, 1997.

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