Curriculum - CCS Bard

Program Overview

The two-year graduate program at CCS Bard is designed to deepen students' understanding of the practical tasks of curating and balances a rigorous academic curriculum with an emphasis on curatorial practice. The curriculum approaches the field of art today as porous at its borders, with many artistic practices taking up economics, technology, politics, philosophy, identity, the environment and the like as their subjects.

Application Deadline

• Application due February 1

Resources & Access

The graduate program is housed within the larger Center for Curatorial Studies. While pursuing a master's degree, graduate students have access to the CCS Bard Library and Archives, the Hessel Museum of Art, and the Marieluise Hessel Collection.

Curriculum Highlights

Graduate students gain a strong foundation in exhibition histories, art historical frameworks, theory, and practice. Core seminars focus on contemporary art, exhibition-making, theory, and art histories with readings in postcolonial and decolonial theory, Black studies, Native American and Indigenous studies, Latin American studies, queer and feminist studies, ecology and infrastructure, media theory and technology, and embodiment and performance studies.

Practical Experience

On the job training is a significant component of the degree through the work placement program, and students travel internationally during the course of the two years. Graduate students curate two significant exhibitions: a first-year group exhibition from the Hessel Collection presented at the end of the first semester, and a final master's thesis exhibition (or similarly ambitious curatorial project) at the Hessel Museum with a related scholarly paper of 6,000–9,000 words.

Collaborations & Initiatives

CCS Bard benefits from close collaborations with Bard College and actively develops new courses and cross-lists with Art History and Visual Culture; Africana Studies; the American and Indigenous Program; Film and Electronic Arts; Human Rights Program; Middle Eastern Studies; and more. CCS presents the ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative supported by the Institute for the Studies of Latin American Art.