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.
The practice of criticism involves making finer and finer distinctions among like things, but it is also a way to ask fundamental questions about art and life. The MFA program in Art Writing is designed to give students a grounding in the philosophical and historical bases of art and criticism, to improve both their writing and their seeing, and to provide sources they can draw on for the rest of their lives.
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.
We concentrate on the essay as form, as well as on shorter forms of review, and learn art writing by doing it. We want students to come out of this program better prepared to write in the world.
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.
In addition to our exceptional core faculty—including Nancy Princenthal, Dejan Lukic, Jennifer Krasinski, Thomas Beard, Lucy Raven, Susan Bell, Chuck Stein, and Lynne Tillman—we invite many writers, critics, philosophers, editors, artists, and art historians in each year to give lectures and to meet with our students individually and in small groups. Recent guests include: Susan Buck-Morss, Sylvère Lotringer, Holland Cotter, Michael Taussig, Boris Groys, Cuauhtémoc Medina, T. J. Clark, Peter Schjeldahl, Bill Berkson, Lucy Lippard, Amy Sillman, Linda Nochlin, Hilton Als, and Dave Hickey.
Our students come from all over the world—Nigeria, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Brazil, Ecuador, Ireland, France, England, and Canada—as well as from around the United States. They also come from a wide variety of backgrounds and education, with undergraduate degrees in Art, Art History, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and Creative Writing, among others. 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 the greatest concentration 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.
We are now accepting applications for the fall 2016 term. Generous departmental scholarships, as well as other forms of assistance, are available on a competitive basis. Contact us at artwriting.sva.edu, or T +212 592 2408 for further information or to set up an appointment.
To see sample programs, faculty bios, news, the online journal, recordings of our popular lecture series, and admissions procedures, go to artwriting.sva.edu.
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