209 East 23rd Street
New York, New York 10010
United States
We are now accepting applications for the Fall 2018 term, to begin September 2018. Departmental scholarships, as well as other forms of assistance, are available. Contact us for further information or to set up an appointment.
If it’s not good writing, it can’t be good criticism, to paraphrase Walter Benjamin in “The Author as Producer.” That’s the basic premise of the graduate program in Art Writing at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
The real history of art writing and criticism is vast, including everyone who has ever written well on art and its relation to the rest of the world. Criticism needs a new “expanded field” of its own, now, and this expanded field has to be grounded in radical literature and philosophy.
Situated in the heart of New York City and at the intersection of words and images, the Art Writing MFA program at SVA offers students the opportunity to bring their language into a complex meeting with the visual arts and the ideas that inform it.
Writers on art need a broad base of knowledge, so our curriculum is wide-ranging. In addition to the foundation seminar, Bases of Criticism I & II, taught by chair David Levi Strauss, three levels of writing practicums, and the thesis seminar, we offer an array of continually changing electives taught by prominent writers and critics.
From its inception, this program has also had a special emphasis on the history and future of the image. The writers of tomorrow must study images in all of their manifestations in order to better understand how we are subject to them.
Our students come from all over the world, as well as from around the United States. They also come from a wide variety of backgrounds and education. What they have in common is intellectual curiosity, a passion for art, and the desire to write well.
It is obviously a big advantage to have such a program situated in the heart of New York City, amidst one of the greatest concentrations of artists and art activity in the world. The connections made in the program between students and others working in the field are invaluable and long lasting.
To see sample programs, faculty bios, news, the online journal, recordings of our popular lecture series, and admissions procedures, go to artwriting.sva.edu.
Contact: T +(212) 592 2408 / artwriting [at] sva.edu
