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“When an empire is lurching to a halt at its very end, it might be the moment when it begins, or is forced, to re-imagine its relationship to a national insanity.”
—Mary Walling Blackburn, “XOXO, Insanity, Institution” (2011)

🗓️ Thursday, May 14 @ 6:00–7:30 PM
📍 Carpenter Center Theater, Lower Level

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts and MIT List Visual Arts Center co-present a reading of “Cream Psychosis” (Sternberg Press, e-flux Journal, 2026), a collection of essays spanning the 2010s to the present by artist and writer Mary Walling Blackburn, followed by a conversation between Walling Blackburn and artist and writer David Levine.

Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event from the MIT Press Bookstore.

Visit the List Center or Carpenter Center websites to learn more and register.

🗓️ Thursday, May 7 @ 5:30 PM
📍 MIT List Visual Arts Center

Join Léa Miranda, a PhD student in the MIT History, Theory + Criticism of Art and Architecture program, for a conversation around “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form.”

In this talk, Léa Miranda will discuss the relationships between property, labor, capital, and artistic production, which have long influenced the history of art, through the specific example of photography.

Register via the link in our bio.

Headshot courtesy Léa Miranda

A choreography you don’t just watch, you contract into 📄

May 5–10, Sophia Giovannitti (@sophia_giovannitti) presents a new choreography for her series “Contract” (2022 – ), which attempts to antagonize entrenched power dynamics between artists and those who collect, curate, patronize, exploit, and visit them.

Giovannitti will occupy the List Center’s Bakalar Gallery for six days, working within it on her forthcoming book. The gallery will be closed to the public, save for those who pay $1,136.63 to enter a new choreography with her, through which she pursues a legal transfer of risk and an affective experience of “something else.”

To learn more and participate, visit choreography.info

Pictured: “Untitled (deer mauled by coyotes on private land),” 2026. Courtesy the artist

Tomorrow: Join the List Center for a talk with Graduate Student Paul Dai at 5:30 PM!

In this talk, Dai will bring his research in macro-finance into conversation with artworks by Cally Spooner and Cassie Thornton.

Across both projects, the broader question is how financial structures become lived conditions; how they measure performance, allocate exposure, and determine where the weight of adjustment falls.

Register via the link in our bio.

Pictured: Cally Spooner, “Self Tracking,” 2018 (detail). Photo: Daniel Perez

Final days to catch “Images at Work: Strike and Sabotage” in our Bakalar Gallery on view through May 3 🎥

The film and video program “Images at Work” is conceived as an offshoot of and appendix to “Performing Conditions”—dependent on the whole, even as it supports it. Each thematic program screens for three weeks in the Bakalar Gallery. The films screen on a loop during gallery hours.

“Strike and Sabotage” proposes a shared grammar and common ground for labor struggle and anticolonial struggle.

Featured films:
i) Alanis Obomsawin, “Spudwrench: Kahnawake Man,” 1997. 58 min.
ii) Razan AlSalah, “A Stone’s Throw,” 2024. 40 min.

Pictured: Razan AlSalah, “A Stone’s Throw,” 2024 (still). Courtesy the artist

Next Week: Join Paul Dai, a PhD student in Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management, for a conversation around “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form” on Thursday, April 30 at 5:30 PM.

Dai will discuss how we might treat financial expansion not as a uniform sign of development, but ask when it instead generates asymmetric dependence and fragility.

Learn more and register via the link in our bio!

Headshot courtesy Paul Dai

Listen and learn more from artist Tishan Hsu, who presented “Tishan Hsu: Paintings” at the List Center in 1988.

Tishan Hsu’s evocative sculptured paintings combine industrial scale, glowing color, high-tech material, and aerodynamic edges with forms, suggesting a dialogue between the technological and the organic.

Follow along for our upcoming series, as we celebrate 40 years at the List Center! A collection of interviews with artists, past directors, and current staff, tracing the oral history of an experimental place for contemporary art.

All footage used is from MIT List Visual Arts Center, MIT Museum, and MIT Library Archives.

Hear from artist Fred Wilson who transformed the United States Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale into a meditation on race, representation, and history.

Known for questioning the embedded notions of “truth” in museum displays, Wilson established himself as a key figure of institutional critique through installations that juxtapose historical artifacts, art objects, film, video, audio, and text.

Follow along for our upcoming series, as we celebrate 40 years at the List Center! A collection of interviews with artists, past directors, and current staff, tracing the oral history of an experimental place for contemporary art.

All footage used is from MIT List Visual Arts Center, MIT Museum, and MIT Library Archives.

This Saturday, the MIT List Visual Arts Center and Non-Event present a special concert of multichannel works 🎶

Composer & electronic musician Lea Bertucci will be joined by master Medieval flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen, and a solo performance by composer Olivia Block.

Learn more and register via the link in our bio.

🗓️ Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 7:30 PM
📍MIT Thomas Tull Concert Hall, 201 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA

Pictured:
1) Electronic musician Lea Bertucci joined by flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen
2) Performance by composer Olivia Block

This Saturday, the MIT List Visual Arts Center and Non-Event present a special concert of multichannel works 🎶

Composer & electronic musician Lea Bertucci will be joined by master Medieval flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen, and a solo performance by composer Olivia Block.

Learn more and register via the link in our bio.

🗓️ Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 7:30 PM
📍MIT Thomas Tull Concert Hall, 201 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA

Pictured:
1) Electronic musician Lea Bertucci joined by flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen
2) Performance by composer Olivia Block

This Weekend! Join us in celebrating 40 years at the List Center 🎊

On Friday, April 10 from 7:00–9:00 PM, kick-off the 40th Anniversary Celebration and opening reception for “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form.”

On Saturday, April 11 from 1:00–6:00 PM, continue the celebration with an afternoon of performances, talks, films, and a special reception. Please note that the celebration is designed as a drop-in afternoon, and guests are welcome to join us for individual performances or the full day’s activities.

View the full schedule on our website.

Listen and learn more from Katy Kline, the Director of the List Center (1986–99). Previously Kline was the curator (1979–83) and coordinator of special projects (1983–86) at the Hayden Gallery.

Kline’s work with artists and residencies, acclaimed publications, and international exhibitions—including the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale—expanded the List Center’s reach and reputation.

Follow along for our upcoming series, as we celebrate 40 years at the List Center! A collection of interviews with artists, past directors, and current staff, tracing the oral history of an experimental place for contemporary art.

All footage used is from MIT List Visual Arts Center, MIT Museum, and MIT Library Archives.

Join us as we honor four decades of experimental practice, bold artistic inquiry, and groundbreaking exhibitions and public art at MIT.

Friday, April 10 @ 7:00 PM – Opening Reception for “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency As Form” with music by @stealth.mode

Saturday, April 11
1:00 PM – Performance – Gordon Hall: 1–2 pm
3:00 PM – Performance – Autumn Knight: M _ _ _ ER
4:30 PM – Special Reception – Creative Direction by Nayland Blake

Free & open to all. We look forward to celebrating with you.