Deadline for domestic students: December 31, 2015
Deadline for international students: November 30, 2015
Our three-year collaborative MFA program offers students an opportunity to extend and deepen their studio practices within the expanded context of a research university. The Art Department community is comprised of roughly 45 graduate students, 22 outstanding faculty, numerous supportive staff and a large group of undergraduate art students. U.S. News and World Report ranks our MFA program #4 nationally among public institutions and #18 among all schools.
MFA students develop their practices within and beyond the context of studio areas, including art and technology, ceramics, glass, painting and drawing, photography, printmaking, and sculpture. The curriculum balances intensive studio-based coursework with university electives. Each semester, cross-disciplinary review committees offer critical dialogue between the student and faculty from different disciplines and practices. We have also been developing programming for international study: last summer, faculty Roger Beebe held a May session filmmaking class in Berlin, and this year, faculty Suzanne Silver will conduct a May session course in Sienna, Italy.
The vast majority of our students are fully funded by Graduate Assistantships. Funding is awarded on a competitive basis once a student is admitted to our program. GA responsibilities include teaching courses, assisting courses, assisting in labs and working in the galleries associated with the Arts Initiative.
Our recently renovated facilities include Sherman Art Center, which houses sculpture and glass area classrooms, studios, equipment and exhibition space. Renovated in 2013, Hopkins Hall houses facilities for printmaking, photography, art and technology, and ceramics, as well as painting and drawing. The Studio for Art and Design Research is one of the many shared labs and research facilities for our students.
Many co-sponsored visits and talks by artists, critics and curators have occurred in this past year alone. Visitors from the last two years include: Glenn Ligon, Lucy Lippard, Michelle Grabner, Stan Douglas, Sarah Oppenheimer, Anthony Huberman, Nina Katchadourian, Kamrooz Aram, and Mira Schor. Co-sponsorships between the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Department of Art’s Living Culture Initiative (a program developed by Art faculty Michael Mercil and National Arts Medal recipient Ann Hamilton), and the Department of History of Art make this rich program of visiting artists and scholars possible. This year, the Department of has a new visiting artist program that will bring Lyle Ashton Harris, Cameron Martin, Kristen Lucas, Steve Reinke and others.
Besides its own rich cultural resources, Columbus, a city of over one million people, is located within six hours of several significant urban centers, including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Over the past few years, the department sponsors day trips to visit Pittsburgh and Cleveland to visit those cities’ art venues, including the Carnegie Museum, Warhol Museum, Mattress Factory, Cleveland Museum of Art, and MOCA Cleveland. The international programming of the world-renowned Wexner Center for the Arts of The Ohio State University, the recently renovated and expanded Columbus Museum of Art, the Pizzutti Center, and CCAD’s Canzani Center Gallery are just some of the venues bringing contemporary art to Columbus.
