September 24, 2019–April 14, 2020
September 24, 2019: Alexis Rockman
October 22, 2019: Korakrit Arunanondchai
November 19, 2019: Savannah Knoop
January 28, 2019: Ibrahim Mahama
February 18, 2019: The Black School
March 3, 2019: Diana Al- Hadid
April 14, 2019: Shahzia Sikander
All Lectures are at 7pm in Higgins Hall Auditorium, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn Campus
Free and open to the public.
Each year Pratt Fine Arts invites contemporary artists to campus for a public lecture and to conduct studio visits with fine arts graduate students. This Visiting Artists Lecture Series (VALS) is coordinated by graduate student leaders. The aim is to provide our students with exposure to a wide array of artists working in a variety of fields at various stages in their career.
Recent visiting artists include: Narcissister, Pradeep Dalal, James Hyde, Jill Magid, Schezerade Garcia, Rochelle Feinstein, Lavar Munroe, Lorna Simpson, Rico Gatson, Anicka Yi, Jill Magid, Nicole Eisenman, Tom Sachs, Aura Satz, Leigh Ledare, Judith Bernstein, Dan Walsh, Kalup Linzey, Keltie Ferris, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Diana Al-Hadid, Mary Walling-Blackburn, Phoebe Washburn, Rashaad Newsome, Dora + Maja, Bryan Zanisnik, Nancy Grossman, Guido Van Der Werve, Carrie Schneider, Peter Saul, Michael Berryhill, Wafaa Bilal, and Catherine Opie.
The 2019–20 Visiting Artists Lecture Series was made possible in part by a generous grant from The Robert Lehman Foundation with additional support from Locanda Vini e Olii.
About Pratt Institute’s MFA Program in Fine Arts
Pratt Institute’s MFA program provides advanced education for artists supported by a distinguished faculty, exceptional facilities, and a supportive community of peers. Driven by exploration and enriched by the abundance and inspiration of New York City, Pratt’s critically engaged faculty respond to each student’s individual practice, fostering their development within the diverse cultures and myriad practices of contemporary art-making. Pratt’s MFA Fine Arts degree supports interdisciplinary practice. Faculty and students build close relationships through structured studio visits, seminars, and informal conversations. These relationships create a vital community and supportive network that endures long after graduation.
The curriculum is both rigorous and flexible, offering wide latitude for exploration while fostering critical perspectives and a deeper understanding of the histories, issues, cultural and transdisciplinary contexts that inform art practices today. With the art world on our doorstep, there are many opportunities to meet influential contemporary curators, critics and cultural producers. Professional practice education is integrated throughout the program, providing students the tools they need to make their way as professional artists and cultural innovators after graduation. Faculty members in the Fine Arts program are active professional artists distinguished by their numerous national and international exhibitions and appearance in major art publications. Many have received significant awards from such organizations as the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Graduate Fine Arts facilities are outstanding. Students have individual studios located in the Pfizer Building, a renovated industrial building that houses our fabrication shops, exhibition spaces, seminar rooms, and a student lounge. Campus facilities include a fully equipped woodshop, metal shop, print shop, ceramics studios, darkrooms, and a digital output lab with high-resolution scanners and printers, as well as dedicated campus galleries. There are many opportunities to show work in a variety of traditional and non-traditional spaces and students are encouraged to curate self-initiated exhibitions. In both fall and spring, MFA students host a public open studio event. In the spring second-year students mount individual thesis capstone exhibitions and have the option of showing their work in a curated group show at Pratt Manhattan Gallery.
In addition to a regular schedule of studio visits by faculty members, the Pratt Artists League (PAL, the Fine Arts graduate student club) invites artists, curators, and critics for studio visits, and organizes open studios as well as other student-generated programming and exhibitions.
For more information about our MFA Program, please visit www.pratt.edu/gradfinearts
