The MA Curatorial Practice program at SVA, located in the heart of New York City, is now accepting applications for fulltime and, in special cases, part-time students. 

Our two-year master’s degree is based on a fully immersive, hands-on approach to curating, with weekly opportunities to meet national and international curators and the goal of placing well-trained graduates in curatorial jobs. Just in the last year, from the small group of our graduates, they have been hired at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Independent Curators International, New York; the Inter-American Development Bank’s art collection, Washington, DC; and e-flux, New York.

Taught by distinguished working professionals teaching what they do, students take practicums in research, rhetoric, exhibition making, and other forms of curatorial enterprise. There are workshops in professional practices; courses in history, philosophy, and theory; writing workshops; summer internships at leading institutions around the world; a subsidized trip for first-year students to a major European exhibition, such as Documenta and the Venice Biennale; and the opportunity to make at least three exhibitions or curatorial projects in public spaces in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Our Curatorial Roundtable brings more than forty international curators to the program for seminars—meetings that have turned into internships and project work. As well, the program takes full advantage of the vast number of arts institutions and professionals on the doorstep of our state-of-the-art facilities at the School of Visual Arts in Chelsea, with students frequently adding second internships at major museums and cultural venues in the city, such as the Whitney, MoMA, MoMA PS1, the New Museum, the Guggenheim, the Queens Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, The Kitchen, and Art in General.

Our remarkable faculty and faculty at large include Tim Griffin, Charles Renfro, Chus Martinez, Thierry de Duve, Hou Hanru, Laurel Ptak, Sara Reisman, Joshua Decter, Maria Lind, David Frankel, Mia Locks, Terry Smith, Lumi Tan, David A. Ross, Mick Wilson, Roddy Schrock, Daniel Kunitz, and Brian Kuan Wood, who has just joined us as Director of Research.

This November 18, we will present an international summit titled “Curatorial Activism and the Politics of Shock,” with the following speakers: Defne Ayas, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Ute Meta Bauer, NTU CCA Singapore and School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Nicolas Bourriaud, La Panacée, Montpellier; Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Castello di Rivoli and GAM, Turin; Sofía Hernandez Chong Cuy, Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, and forthcoming at Witte de With; Joshua Decter, independent curator and writer, New York; Clémentine Deliss, independent curator, Berlin; Elena Filipovic, Kunsthalle Basel; Boris Groys, New York University; Hou Hanru, MAXXI, Rome; María Belén Sáez de Ibarra, Museum of Art, National University of Colombia; Maria Lind, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; Antonia Majaca, IZK Institute for Contemporary Art, Graz University of Technology; Chus Martinez, Institute of Art, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel; Gabi Ngcobo, NGO (Nothing Gets Organised), Johannesburg, and 10th Berlin Biennale; Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries, London; Jack Persekian, independent curator, Jerusalem; Pi Li, M+, Hong Kong; Terry Smith, University of Pittsburgh and the European Graduate School, Saas-Fee; Mick Wilson, Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg; and Tirdad Zolghadr, Paul Klee Zentrum, Bern, and KW Institute, Berlin. Moderators: Adrienne Edwards, Performa, New York; Brian Kuan Wood, e-flux journal and SVA MA Curatorial Practice, New York. Learn more about the summit here.

Remarkable events like this, at which students have special access to the world’s leading curators, are hallmarks of the program and its dedication to covering every aspect of curatorial work toward practical professional development.

Interested students should apply for our February 1 deadline and are encouraged to contact the program at T +1 212 592 2274 or reach us at macp [​at​] sva.edu. For details about the program and to apply, visit macp.sva.edu.