The MFA Art Criticism and Writing program provides a broad spectrum of courses taught by experts in their respective disciplines. Course work both informs and guides students toward their personal and professional goals in art criticism and its writing.

Degree candidates must successfully complete 60 credits, including all required courses. A residency of two academic years is required. In the final semester, each student completes a thesis, which must be reviewed and approved by the thesis committee and the department chair in order for the student to be eligible for degree conferral.

The curriculum assists students in the development of both a professional engagement with the visual arts and a professional body of work. These objectives are achieved through training in and exposure to contemporary critical practices, and the simultaneous development of a solid foundation in cultural histories and philosophies, both ancient and modern. The second year concentrates on the refinement of critique and writing skills to enable each student to achieve a personal style of commentary.

Bases of Criticism I and II; Writing I, II and III; Thesis Seminar and Thesis are all required courses. The curriculum is also designed to accommodate specific areas of interest through the elective courses, which relate to major issues in contemporary art criticism. Students work with their academic advisor to create a course schedule that is tailored to their individual academic objectives.

In addition to the core faculty, the program includes visiting lecturers from around the world. These lecturers will both discuss the backgrounds of their traditions as they relate to creative expression and share their perspectives on the relationships between the artistic practices of their cultures and the global significance of these practices.

REQUIRED COURSES

Bases of Criticism I
Required of all first-year students, this course will provide background to the history, theory and criticism offered through the elective courses. Foundational texts and other sources will create a base for further studies during the two-year program. This course will also assist students in understanding the prominent theoretical positions of art criticism-past and present-and their sources.

Bases of Criticism II
This is the second part of a two-semester course. Please see ACG-5050 for course description.

Writing I
This course will lead to the writing of the thesis in the final semester of the program. Students will read examples from different styles of critical writing. Brief texts, in the nature of reviews of current exhibitions, will be assigned. As the process advances, students are encouraged to dig more deeply into ideas without ever losing sight of the value of clarity. Some students will choose to express themselves poetically and others analytically; the common goal will be clarity of expression.

Writing II
This is the second part of a three-semester course. Please see ACG-5080 for course description.

Writing III
This course is a continuation of ACG-5085, Writing II, with an added element. In conjunction with writing and revising exhibition reviews for possible publication in the College?s online journal, Degree Critical, instructors will consult on thesis issues such as selection of a topic, shaping the parameters of the selected topic in a mode suitable for the thesis and review of written drafts and prognosticated outlines of the remaining work to come.

Thesis Seminar
Thesis faculty from various backgrounds and fields will discuss what is important about a thesis from their points of view. Students will submit drafts of their work for discussion and review.

Thesis
Each student will meet with his or her thesis advisor and work on a one-to-one basis throughout the semester. Meetings are used for the instructor to read drafts of the thesis-in-progress followed by discussion on its development. A schedule of meetings will be established at the beginning of the semester.

ELECTIVE COURSES
Note: Elective courses are listed alphabetically by course title.

The Archaeology of Modernism (1863-1924)
This course will explore the intellectual and historical background, primarily in France from 1863 to 1924, which led up to and defined the "isms" of 20th century modernism (e.g., fauvism, futurism, expressionism, Dada and surrealism). We will begin with Baudelaire?s concept of the modern, his notion of the city as site, the flan?ur, artifice and ugliness as beauty; move to symbolist poetry and the cultivation of the visionary "d?r?glement des sens" in the work of Arthur Rimbaud; then Alfred Jarry?s ever relevant Ubu Roi and science of pataphysics, followed by an in-depth discussion of World War I and the origins of Dada in Europe and America, including Man Ray and Baroness Elsa von Freytag and their relationships with Duchamp; the deep metaphysics of surrealism found in Lautr?amont; the influence of figures such as Arthur Cravan and Jacques Vach? on Andr? Breton; the novels of Louis Aragon; the poetry of Paul Eluard and Phillip Soupault; culminating with a consideration of the two poles of surrealism: Breton?s dream polemics versus Georges Bataille?s abject metaphysics.

Art Magazines
The history of art may be preserved in books and museums, but it is written first in the pages of the art magazine. Organ of the establishment, mouthpiece of the market, vehicle for revolution: with a history stretching back more than two centuries, art magazines have been all of these things and more. From Goethe?s early periodical Propyl?en to Gazette des Beaux-Arts, and from La R?volution Surr?aliste to frieze, art magazines not only record changes in the way art is made, bought, and understood, but often also help to drive such evolution. In this course, we will use the art magazine as a lens through which to read art history, investigating its role as an essential public focus for myriad interdependencies that govern the activity of artists, dealers, writers, institutions and viewers.

The Art of the Interview
An important tool of the art writer is the interview. Yet it is often regarded as a kind of blank-faced question-and-answer followed by the publication of a mechanically edited transcript. In this course, we will discuss and practice what it means to conduct a successful interview. Students will learn how to prepare properly, how to read a person and use dialogue as a creative form, and how to fashion the interview material after the fact. Students will interview one another, and use New York City as a laboratory of artists, dealers, gallery directors, editors, writers, academics and other representatives of the art world to interview and profile.?

Artists? Writings
The significant interventions that visual artists have made through art writing into the art criticism of their time are the focus of this course. It will examine artists? writings, including journals, art criticism, manifestos, theoretical writings, letters and artist-run publications. Artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, L?szl? Moholy-Nagy, Kasimir Malevich, Andr? Breton, Marsden Hartley, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Motherwell, Louise Bourgeois, Allan Kaprow, Robert Smithson, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Adrian Piper, Mary Kelly and Carolee Schneemann, among others, have bridged the gap between art practice, artwork and critical theory, and invigorated the language of art criticism. We will concentrate on some of the key artists? writings from Russian constructivism to the Bauhaus, surrealism, abstract expressionism, Fluxus, feminism, conceptual art and minimalism.?

The Critical Evolution From Modernism to Postmodernism
The relationship of postmodern theory and media to modernism as it was espoused by artists and art critics of the last half-century will be examined in this course. Conceived in reaction to the formalist, reductionist and structuralist theories of modernism, postmodernism is born in the politically and aesthetically transgressive theories and media innovations of Dada and surrealism, and evolves to challenge the art institutions and art historical canons. The writings of artists and critics of the last 50 years will accompany discussions on the media ironies of pop art, the anti-institutionalism of environmental art, the anti-formalism of postminimalism and poststructuralism, the deconstruction of originality and authorship in appropriation and simulation art.

Marxism and Art Criticism
This course aims to acquaint students with significant figures and texts in the tradition of Marxist art theory and criticism, beginning with an essay from Marx himself and concluding with work by T. J. Clark, the most eminent contemporary art historian working in the framework of Marxism. Readings also include works by Trotsky, Plekhanov, Raymond Williams, Simmel, Georg Lukacs, Ernst Fischer, Jameson, Althusser, Marcuse and Adorno.?

Media Critique and Aesthetics: Theodor Adorno on Television, Photography, Film, Radio and Music
Adorno wrote extensively and importantly on all areas of mass media. This course is an in-depth presentation and discussion of his writings with particular emphasis on their relation to his general theory of society and aesthetics in Aesthetic Theory, as well as to several of Walter Benjamin?s writings. Readings will include "How to Look at Television," "On Popular Music," "Film Transparencies," "The Radio Broadcasts of Martin Luther Thomas," "Current of Music," "Aesthetic Theory" and "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

Science and Art Criticism
Over the last century, art has been moving gradually away from the realm of religion and drawing closer to the realm of science. From Marcel Duchamp to Dennis Oppenheim to Agnes Denes and Nam June Paik, this course will consider recent significant texts that examine the incorporation of science and art. Readings will include works by Linda Henderson and Bill Camfield.

Sexual and Gender Dissidence in Art Criticism
Art has changed since the politics of feminism, queer activism and gender bending in the 1980s. The art of sexual diversity and transgendering has been a presence in art since the ancient Egyptians, so why are sexual and gender politics rocking the art world so resoundingly today? This course is designed as much for the heterosexual student fascinated with the repression of sexual and gender codes as the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender student seeking an analysis of self-expression. We will examine the historical, economic, ideological and cultural dynamics that have shaped homoerotic and homopolitical productions of the 20th century to the present.

A Short History of Reading
Reading is a skill that has shaped society and the human brain in a manner we are just beginning to understand. It has developed from the 15th century as an elaborate and varied practice within very specific historical and cultural contexts. In other words, it has a history. But what is it to read? We will learn about the impact of the printing press, the book, the novel and the Internet. But of primary importance, we will use the history of reading to explore whether reading is "dead" or simply approached differently in contemporary society. Students will read literature, poetry, historical and theoretical texts from John Donne, Gertrude Stein and Roland Barthes, to the just published Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of Reading by Maryanne Wolf.

The Sublime and the Beautiful
This course will conduct a literary and visual examination of the concepts of the sublime and the beautiful, as one of the greatest dichotomies in Western theory and criticism. We will examine the sublime (Burke, Kant, Turner, Newman) and the beautiful (Bell, Greenberg, Heidegger, Habermas), as well as some of the images on which their theories are based. In addition, recent works that include Dave Hickey?s The Invisible Dragon and essays by Peter Schjeldahl will be discussed.

This Moment
Contemporary issues in art criticism will be examined, including the positions and attitudes of writers today-a kind of prosopography of contemporary art criticism. Important recent authors, books and essays will be consulted and discussed. The current state of criticism will be appraised through texts, art trends, publishing ventures and politics. This course will seek to answer fundamental questions such as: Is criticism becoming more or less critical? What is its relationship to religion and science? Does art criticism serve political agendas? Writings in art criticism of the last 10 years will be studied.

Virtual Curating
The premise of this course is that students will conceive of a thematic, biennial-style exhibition and select the artists and works for the show. Over the semester, the class will write all texts that would be required for such an exhibition, including letters of invitation, press releases, catalog essays/entries and wall text. Theoretical texts on curating as well as exemplary catalog essays are included. All aspects of curating, short of an actual physical installation, will be covered, with an emphasis on writing.