800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, California 94133
United States
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) is pleased to announce the launch of a new MFA Studio Art / MA Exhibition and Museum Studies Dual Degree, commencing in Fall 2018.
SFAI’s Dual Degree MFA/MA program is designed for students whose practices cross the boundaries of art and research to arrive at their own forms of production. The program addresses how socioeconomic, political, and cultural contexts affect creative action and how exhibition-making constitutes creative art practice in and of itself. The Dual Degree with an MA in Exhibition and Museum Studies (EMS) is ideal for innovative students who want to create hybrid practices that incorporate critical and pragmatic tools needed to enter the contemporary art world.
Through the MA program, Exhibition and Museum Studies students will prepare for creative ventures like starting an alternative gallery or online journal, teaching, leading a non-profit, or any number of other career-defining endeavors in the contemporary art world. The expansion of the MA EMS program into a Dual Degree will continue and expand upon SFAI’s strong history of alumni entrepreneurship and creative career-building.
SFAI’s MFA program combines a rigorous focus on both process and materials while immersing students in the discourses surrounding all approaches to contemporary art practice. Students in their first two years will have an individual studio space at the SFAI Graduate Center at Fort Mason which will be used as a site to consider established and experimental delivery systems for art experiences
SFAI is also excited to announce that Frank Smigiel has been appointed Chair of the Exhibition and Museum Studies program. Building on the critical framework of founding chair Hou Hanru, Smigiel joins Exhibition and Museum Studies to expand the department’s engagement with arts infrastructures. As the Director for Arts Programming & Partnerships at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, Smigiel will help SFAI build opportunities for students to develop practices in exhibition-making, publishing, and performance. Frank is also an instructor in SFAI’s graduate department and is the former Associate Curator of Performance & Film at SFMOMA, with curatorial interests including the intersection of theatrical and live art forms, commerce by artists, and queer histories.
Applications for the MFA Studio Art / MA Exhibition and Museum Studies program for Fall 2018 are open now at sfai.edu/admissions.
About San Francisco Art Institute
Founded in 1871, San Francisco Art Institute 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 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. 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, Clyfford Still, and Kehinde Wiley.
