Our two-year graduate program is an intense critique-based experience that is fully funded for every student. The program’s size, averaging 10 students in residence, ensures a rigorous critical atmosphere that supports a range of theoretical perspectives and diverse ways of making. The backbone of the program is focused independent study with our core graduate faculty: Mike Cloud, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Caroline Kent, Michael Rakowitz, Steve Reinke, Lane Relyea, and Brendan Fernandes.
Our Visiting Artist Program is a critical component of our educational mission, bringing a wide range of contemporary artists, curators and cultural producers to engage in dialogue with our students and community at large. In past years we hosted Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Dolar, Sam Durant, Walid Raad, Darby English, Steffani Jemison, Andrea Fraser, Coco Fusco, Candice Hopkins, Wangechi Mutu, William Pope L., Adam Szymczyk, and Hamza Walker to name a few. In addition to public lecture programs, our visiting artists and lecturers conduct individual studio visits or group seminars with our graduate students.
The MFA program is structured by seminars, group critique courses and electives. At the end of each quarter we hold graduate critiques, open to prospective students and invited guests.
A,T,P, organizes a graduate student study trip biannually. Recent destinations have included Rome, Berlin and Mexico City, where students visited museums and galleries and met with artists based in those cities. Among other notable trips, in 2017 students traveled to Kassel and Athens to attend documenta 14, meeting with artists featured in the exhibition and assisting faculty member Irena Haiduk; and in 2015 students took part in a five week program working with the artists and curators of the 14th Istanbul Biennial.
One of the greatest assets of our program is the intellectual resources of Northwestern University’s greater research community. Students have access to lectures and courses outside of our department: in Art History, Radio/TV/Film, Screen Cultures, Gender Studies, Performance Studies, Critical Theory, and any other field that relates to their research interests.
