Application deadline: February 1, 2017
School of Visual Arts (SVA)
MA Curatorial Practice
132 West 21st Street, 10th floor
New York, NY 10011
T +1 212 592 2274
[email protected]
The School of Visual Arts’ MA in Curatorial Practice (MACP) program in New York City is now accepting applications for next September’s incoming class. Merit-based supporting fellowships are available to select students.
The program, founded and chaired by Steven Henry Madoff, trains curators with a fully immersive, hands-on approach. The components of the program include: seminars focused on various aspects of contemporary curating taught by leading working professionals teaching what they do; practicums in research, exhibition making, and other forms of curatorial enterprise; courses in history, philosophy, and theory; and workshops in professional practices. All classes are intentionally small so that students, working directly with prominent curators, are given close attention. Students accepted into the program come from around the world and diverse backgrounds, not necessarily with degrees in art history. The work is intense, with a thorough interrogation of curatorial concepts and practices. Each student has the opportunity during the program to make at least three exhibitions or curatorial projects in Manhattan and Brooklyn in public spaces. Many students take advantage of being in New York by doing additional work in galleries, museums, and other cultural venues, adding to their professional credentials.
Maria Lind, Philip Tinari, Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy, Tim Griffin, Gabi Ngcobo, Hou Hanru, Daniel Kunitz, Laurel Ptak, Pi Li, Terry Smith, Luis Camnitzer, Anne Barlow, Brian Kuan Wood, Sarah Demeuse, Joshua Decter, Sara Reisman, Adam Kleinman, Gabriele Horn, Mark Beasley, Adrienne Edwards, José Roca, Xiaoyu Weng, Charles Renfro, Ghalya Saadawi, Octavio Zaya… These are among the many international curators, museum directors, artists, writers, and theorists who are collaborating with the program during this academic year.
MACP is located in Chelsea, just a few minutes walking distance from hundreds of galleries, with museums close by. Most of the students live in Brooklyn, with daily access to the city’s vast cultural offerings. As well, SVA hosts more than twenty graduate programs in fine arts, photography, film and video, graphic design, industrial design, and interactive design, with state-of-the-art labs, libraries, and fabrication facilities. Curatorial students collaborate with fellow students across programs, as we consider curating another form of making within the gamut of artistic production. The program’s space, designed by world-renowned architect and faculty member Charles Renfro of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in association with Leong Leong, hosts classes, exhibitions, panel discussions, performances, and other events.
MACP’s collaborations with Swiss Institute, Independent Curators International, Residency Unlimited, Triangle Workshop, artinfo.com, and other institutions lead directly to exhibitions and publications that students add to their professional CVs. Our students have held internships at MoMA, MoMA PS1, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Kitchen, the Walker Art Center, SALT in Istanbul, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore, biennials in Berlin and Gwangzhou, and many other leading institutions.
At the end of their first year, students do fieldwork at a major international exhibition. Most recently, they’ve gone to the Venice Biennale and Manifesta, where they met with current curators and former directors of the exhibitions, and subsequently published reviews on artinfo.com. This coming year, students will attend Documenta. This remarkable part of the program offers students further immersion in the professional field, complementing their internships around the world. Our immersive program trains curators within a city teeming with international curators, while offering opportunities to learn across the globe.
The costs of the program are highly competitive with other programs in the field, in fact lower than most in the United States, while offering further reductions in some cases with merit-based partial fellowships.
For details about the program, visit our website. Interested students are encouraged to contact MACP at T +1 212 592 2274 or [email protected]. Application information is available here.
