A Museum Dares to Reveal What It Really Costs to Make an Exhibition

A Museum Dares to Reveal What It Really Costs to Make an Exhibition

You know it’s going to be a different kind of group show right away: A wall decal detailing the exhibition budget greets visitors to “Performing Conditions: Artistic Labor and Dependency as Form” at the MIT List Visual Arts Center. Shaped like a receipt but organized like a spreadsheet, it lists artists’ honoraria—a nice $25,000 for 27 artists—alongside framing ($1,100, a steal), vinyl ($1,925), and more. But the exhibition quickly expands to …