MFA Program in Art: accepting applications for fall 2018

The Art Program in the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is currently accepting applications for its two-year Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree for the 2018–19 academic year.

The application deadline is January 5, 2018. After January 5, we will continue to accept applications on a rolling basis. 

The MFA in Art is a studio-based program that interrogates the aesthetic, social, and intellectual contexts that inform artmaking in today’s globalized landscape.

We provide a faculty of full-time and visiting artists who are dedicated to helping our students realize new technical and artistic competencies while enhancing their critical thinking skills. Centered around an intensive program of one to one studio visits, it is a pedagogy that is specifically designed to expand or transform one’s artmaking through a rigorous process of applied practice and creative research.

The program is situated within a collaborative environment that contains individual and shared studio space, digital media and fabrication facilities, creative research workshops and access to classes offered by other programs throughout the CalArts campus.

The curriculum encompasses group critiques, technical and critical seminars, independent studies, classes in cultural theory, and a strong emphasis on individual mentoring. Each student meets frequently with their mentor for discussion, feedback, and evaluation during their two years of study. The critiques and seminars are designed so the students MFA students investigate different strands of process and critique, learning to build as well as deconstruct as they uncover new ways to shape the physical world.

Recent graduates have produced a range of work, from more traditional painting and sculpture to interactive interventions, cross-disciplinary performance, artist’s books, and socially engaged educational initiatives, all within a theoretical, self-critical framework.

The MFA Art Program strongly supports diversity within its student body through an international and domestic outreach.

Recent visiting artists, writers, and curators include: Laura Aguilar, Bojana Cvejić, Dorit Cypis, Danielle Dean, Jennifer Doyle, Martha Friedman, Todd Gray, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Chris Kraus, Young Joon Kwak, Laida Lertxundi, Tala Madani, Mara McCarthy, Helen Molesworth, MPA, Alex Olson, Hank Willis Thomas, Saya Woolfalk, and Wizard Apprentice.

Contact: Miranda Hoffs, Senior Admissions Counselor, School of Art, California Institute of the Arts, mhoffs [​at​] calarts.edu or T +661 253 7786.