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Students returning to college this fall are busy with the usual activities - getting to know their professors, studying in the library. But some are lining up for a different experience. At the University of Chicago, students can borrow an original work of art from the school's museum for free. From Chicago, Alison Cuddy reports.
ALISON CUDDY, BYLINE: The small courtyard outside the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago is normally an oasis of stately trees and stunning sculptures. On this warm fall Saturday morning, it looks and sounds more like a slumber party. Clusters of students are spread out along a concrete wall, wrapped in blankets, chatting and working on their laptops. Cups of coffee and bags of food are scattered around.
Rafaela Grieco-Freeman was the very first to arrive. She and the other students spent the night outdoors not as part of orientation, but for a work of art, museum-quality art - lithographs by Miro and Chagall, prints by Gordon Parks and Jenny Holzer, even a couple of Picassos.
RAFAELA GRIECO-FREEMAN: I was like, no way this is real. Like, this is just - somebody's making something up. I'm getting fake news. And it's astonishing to be a part of this and be able to have these, like, priceless, you know, works of art and also, like, pieces of history just in a dorm room (laughter).
CUDDY: This annual event is not only real, it's been around since 1958 - the brainchild of an alum, Joseph R. Shapiro, an avid collector, and cofounder of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. Shapiro thought students would appreciate art if they could live with it, so he gave the university 50 works to start a lending program. The idea was a big hit from the start, and the collection grew. But in the late 1980s, it went dormant. Thanks to a new funder, it was rebooted in 2017 as Art to Live With, now run by the Smart Museum. Vanja Malloy, the Smart's director, thinks it offers students a new view on art and life.
VANJA MALLOY: Could be something you look at as you drink your morning coffee every day, and you see it in a different way, and maybe you notice things that you didn't before. So living with a work allows you to have this depth of experience that you wouldn't if you were just scrolling on your phone.
CUDDY: Any student living in campus housing can participate. Lauren Payne, who runs Art to Live With, says they do have to sign a loan agreement to keep the art for the school year.
LAUREN PAYNE: Accidents definitely happen. You know, sometimes it might fall off the student's wall and the frame might get damaged, or a hinge might get slipped. But, you know, there's never any malicious damage or anything that has been taken.
CUDDY: By late afternoon, the sun is beating down. Some students pass the time playing cornhole. Then the first check-in starts.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We're starting right over there.
CUDDY: Economics students Anuar Kul-Mukhammed and Rudra Patel have been waiting near the head of the line for more than 12 hours. They think they've got a good shot at their picks when the museum opens in the morning. Then Patel learns they'll go in as a group of 15.
ANUAR KUL-MUKHAMMED: Oh, my God, bro.
RUDRA PATEL: Oh, my God. Yeah, I thought it was groups of, like, one.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: All right, group one. Everybody is here - group one?
CUDDY: The next morning, they do get what they'd hoped for - an etching by one of the Old Masters, Francisco de Goya, and a woodblock by Japanese artist Ando Hiroshige - known for his epic landscapes. Even so, Anuar says he's not sure it was worth it.
KUL-MUKHAMMED: Sleeping outside, you know, in the cold, it was just terrible. It was the worst night I've had here by far.
CUDDY: However, Isha Mehta did return for a second year. The economics and human rights student dressed to match her choice - a lithograph by pop artist Mel Ramos. She says the program has changed her.
ISHA MEHTA: And it did make me more interested in learning more about, like, the art and going to the Smart Museum exhibits. And it did encourage me to take a specific, like, art history class last year.
CUDDY: The future of Art to Live With might be up in the air. Its funding will run out after one more year. But for now, students head home, happily clutching an original artwork to hang in their dorm. For NPR News, I'm Alison Cuddy in Chicago.
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