2017 Distinguished Artist-in-Residency: Tania Bruguera

San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI)
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133

T(415) 749 4534
[email protected]

sfai.edu

San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) announces the appointment of Tania Bruguera as Distinguished Artist-in-Residence for the 2017 Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Studio Art program.

For over 25 years, Bruguera has created socially-engaged performances and installations that examine the nature of political power structures and their effect on the lives of society’s most vulnerable individuals and groups. Her research focuses on ways in which art can be applied to the everyday political life, and on the transformation of social affect into political effectiveness. Her long-term projects are intensive interventions on the institutional structure of collective memory, education, and politics. Her works often expose the social effects of political forces and present global issues of power, migration, censorship and repression through participatory works that turn “viewers” into “citizens.” By creating proposals and aesthetic models for others to use and adapt, she defines herself as an initiator rather than an author, and often collaborates with multiple institutions as well as many individuals so that the full realization of her artwork occurs when others adopt and perpetuate it.

Awarded an Honoris Causa by The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, selected one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, shortlisted for the #Index100 Freedom of Expression Award, a Herb Alpert Award winner, a Radcliffe and Yale World Fellow, and the first artist-in-residence in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.

She participated in the Documenta 11 exhibition and also established the Arte de Conducta (Behavior Art) program at Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. Her work has been shown in the 2015 Venice Biennale, at Tate Modern, London, Guggenheim and MoMA, New York, among others. Bruguera has also recently opened the Hannah Arendt International Institute for Artivism, in Havana—a school, exhibition space and think thank for activist artists and Cubans.

Born 1968 in Havana, Cuba. She lives and works in Havana, New York, and Cambridge.

As the Distinguished Artist, Bruguera will co-instruct a graduate-level Critical Studies course with Sampada Aranke, Assistant Professor of History and Theory of Contemporary Art, and act as keynote speaker for SFAI’s annual Summer Symposium in July 2017 at 800 Chestnut Street in San Francisco, CA. “Making Art ‘Useful’ in the Escuela de Arte Útil” will be taught at, and in collaboration with, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for the summer 2017 semester.

The program
SFAI’s Low-Residency MFA in Studio Art program provides an interdisciplinary context for artists to develop and refine their work while engaging the historical, theoretical, sociopolitical, and creative concerns of the contemporary moment. Founded on the principle that critical inquiry and experimentation are at the forefront of art-making, the program fosters students’ use of their own questioning to generate a sustaining and vital creative practice.

The three-year program offers the rigor of a full-time MFA in a flexible format ideally suited for artists who wish to develop their work without sacrificing a professional career or commitment. Students work with faculty during intensive eight-week summer sessions in San Francisco, and independently—with guidance from artists in their home communities—during the fall and spring. Summer sessions combine critiques, art history and critical studies seminars, visiting artist lectures, and individualized tutorials to create a comprehensive studio- and research-based curriculum. The program culminates with the highly celebrated MFA exhibition. SFAI is continuing to accept applications to the Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art program on a space-available basis.To speak with your personal admissions counselor about this opportunity, email [email protected].

About the San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), founded in 1871, is one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious institutions in the practice and study of contemporary art. As a diverse community of working artists and scholars, SFAI provides students with a rigorous education in the arts and preparation for a life in the arts through an immersive studio environment, an integrated liberal arts and art history curriculum, and critical engagement with the world. Committed to educating artists who will shape the future of art, culture, and society, SFAI fosters creativity and original thinking in an open, experimental, and interdisciplinary context.

SFAI offers BFA, BA, MFA, and MA degrees, a dual MA/MFA degree, a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate, and a range of exhibitions, public programs, and public education courses. SFAI enrolls approximately 680 students in degree programs. Notable past faculty and alumni include Lance Acord, Ansel Adams, Kathryn Bigelow, Enrique Chagoya, Angela Davis, Richard Diebenkorn, Paul Kos, George Kuchar, Annie Leibovitz, Barry McGee, Manuel Neri, Catherine Opie, Peter Pau, Laura Poitras, Clifford Still, and Kehinde Wiley.