929 W. Harrison St.
60607 Chicago IL
Priority application deadline: December 15, 2018 (for the most competitive financial aid)
Application deadline: February 1, 2019
As Chicago’s only public research, UIC provides students pursuing graduate degrees with a diverse, inclusive, and socially-engaged intellectual community that includes a full complement of departments in the humanities and social sciences. The School of Art & Art History at the University of Illinois Chicago is now accepting applications for fall 2017 admission to its highly competitive graduate programs including MA, PhD, and MFA degrees in Art History, Museum and Exhibition Studies, and Art. Located in one of the most diverse, public, urban universities, the school was founded on the principle that history, theory and practice are intimately entwined endeavors. We are home to world-renowned artists and scholars, who are equally committed to their research, practice and teaching. Our programs ignite intellectual and creative curiosity, empowering students to expand the boundaries of what is possible. Students have the opportunity to teach, and all receive partial or full-funding packages.
The Museum and Exhibition Studies (MUSE) MA Program at UIC is actively engaged with the idea that cultural institutions, including museums and galleries, are places where ideas about what it means to be human, how we might care for the earth and each other, how power works in and through our cultural structures to advantage and disadvantage, and more are presented, debated, and worked and reworked using the languages of the arts and sciences, and the tools of research, design, and archives. The program believes that museums and exhibitions reflect and have the potential to inform the contexts of our lives, and that they can and should contribute to the larger project of social justice. This interdisciplinary program emphasizes the evolving social and political context of today’s cultural institutions.
The MA and PhD programs in Art History employ a global, interdisciplinary approach to research and education. Our faculty is committed to critical theory, historiographical inquiry, and interdisciplinary work drawing from literary studies, political philosophy, anthropology, archaeology, and histories of technology and religion. Faculty members work collaboratively with other academics and institutions around the world to investigate the local and intertwined visual and material cultures of the United States, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia.
The Master of Fine Art (MFA) program in Moving Image, New Media Arts, Photography, Computer Sciences, and Studio Arts is an intimate program, and every student occupies studio space on site in Art & Exhibition Hall. Students receive extensive feedback, critique, and dialogue. The dynamic viewpoints of the faculty and students at our urban public university foster a rich intellectual and artistic ecology. All students receive individual studio space in Art & Exhibition Hall, and are actively encouraged to engage departments across the university as well as the cosmopolitan city of Chicago. Students work across media-specific disciplines where individual research and studio work are complemented by collaborative efforts and socially relevant public projects and civic engagement.
In addition we are home to Gallery 400, a contemporary art gallery that is an important resource that provides culturally transformative experiences through exhibitions and dynamic programming. Gallery 400’s Voices Lecture Series is a premier forum in Chicago for discourse in the field of art and design practice. Gallery 400 annually presents between ten and 18 lectures. Discussing timely ideas, significant artists, critics, designers, curators, and historians engage audiences in their creative and conceptual processes.
Our renowned faculty include:
Art: Dianna Frid, Beate Geissler, Doug Ischar, Silvia Malagrino, Matthew Metzger, Dan Peterman, Sabrina Raaf, Jennifer Reeder, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Deborah Stratman and Nate Young
Art History: Elise Archias, Catherine Becker, Nina Dubin, Emmanuel Ortega, Andrew Finegold, Ömür Harmanşah, Hannah B. Higgins, Martha Pollak, Blake Stimson
Museum and Exhibition Studies: Therese Quinn, Lucy Mensah, Jen Delos Reyes
Application deadlines: The next term for which you may apply to enroll is fall 2019.
December 15: priority deadline for applicants who wish to be considered for financial aid from the Department
February 1: regular application deadline
The final application deadline for all programs is February 1.
