Structure

In the first year of the MFA program, students participate in a sequence of three seminar classes: one in the fall, one in the winter, and one in the spring. These quarter-long classes work to develop a common language within the department that is then in turn used to discuss and interrogate the presuppositions and forms of each person’s artist practice. The seminars take many forms depending on the faculty teaching the class but are always focused on the theoretical and historical underpinnings of the field.

In the fall and winter quarters of the academic year all MFA students participate in the "Tuesday Night Critique Class". Throughout the quarter, all 16 students present their work in an informal context that allows the language garnered in the seminar classes to be deployed onto an individual artist practice. These classes are often joined by outside visitors; artists, curators, as well as practitioners from other fields.

MFA students are required to take six electives of which at least three classes have to be outside of the offerings of the Department of Visual Arts. For those outside our department, students explore classes in which the content intersects or is parenthetical to the concerns of their studio practice. Among the very broad offerings at the University of Chicago, classes can include those from the Departments of Anthropology, Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, Sociology, Philosophy and more.

Building from the seminars and individual studio visits, each quarter is utilized for the entire department to come together in critique. Our Department of Visual Arts typically uses two different critique formats, one, the opportunity for the entire department to come together as a community to look at and discuss the work and then, a second, in which the department breaks into smaller groups for a more intimate type of discussion. Currently it is structured so the second year students present their work early in the fall quarter in early October and then again in March in the run up to the presentation of their final thesis exhibitions. The first year MFA students present their work at the end of the fall quarter in December and again in June at the end of their first year.

Campuswide, the University of Chicago has a long history of teaching excellence. In this spirit, all MFA students have the opportunity to TA for faculty every quarter of their two-year program. This provides MFA students exposure to the wide variety of pedagogical approaches within the department, from the practical to the technical and philosophical. To learn more, please view the 2024-25 TA policy.

A benefit of the small cohort within the Department of Visual Arts is the degree to which our faculty engage with our graduate students. Over the course of the two years, faculty come to know the concerns and strengths of the artists in the program and work to develop their practice along the lines of individual’s art aspirations. One of the primary means we develop this shared knowledge is through a series of studio visits MFA students have with faculty over the course of their two years. This unique aspect of our program provides our students conversations of radically different approaches and content exposing the students to a variety of viewpoints with which to build their coherent understanding of and ideas about their studio practice.

The Open Practice Committee is our visiting artist program in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. It is responsible for organizing a number of talks per quarter along with inviting outside individuals to engage in studio visits and critiques. Working closely with the DoVA faculty and other arts organizations on campus, the OPC Program Administrator & Curator will curate and invite a range of artists, critics, curators, and historians that complement the diversity of curriculum and interests in the department.

Over the course of their time in the program, MFA students have the opportunity to mentor one of the department's selected "Studio Track" BA students. The Studio Track program is a competitive undergraduate program in which undergraduate students are given specific resources, including private studios, and access to faculty mentorship along with their MFA mentor. The Studio Track culminates in a final BA thesis exhibition in the Logan Center gallery. The MFA mentor component of the program provides the MFA student invaluable teaching experience while at the same time, allowing both the MFA and the BA students a shared space for dialogue independent of faculty.

The culmination of the two-year MFA program is the thesis exhibition. These exhibitions are self organized by the MFA cohort in their second year and take place at the Logan Center gallery. This exhibit represents an encapsulation of what the artist has developed in the MFA program and provides an opportunity for the graduating artist to work with the Logan Exhibitions team in presenting a professionally produced exhibition. The thesis is often accompanied by commissioned written materials about the show and forms the setting for the artist's final review by the faculty at the end of their graduate experience.

In conjunction with their thesis exhibition, MFA students are expected to produce a piece of writing we refer to as their thesis abstract. These texts are produced in collaboration with a thesis committee, a grouping of two MFA students along with two faculty advisers. Over the course of the second year of the program, these groups meet regularly to refine and articulate the writings assisted by the advice of the faculty advisers. The goal of this writing is to help the artist articulate the ways and means of their practice specifically to the thesis exhibition, but also within the larger arc of their work. These texts have proven beneficial not only within the experience of the MFA program but as a base to be used after graduation in applications to grants and residencies as well as texts associated with exhibition and related projects.