UNDERGRADUATE
View from the Zellerbach Quad. Photo by Trevor Hacker.
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Installation view of the BFA Exhibition, Diego Rivera Gallery, 2018. Photo by Alex Peterson (BFA Photography).
SFAI + YOU You’ve found this viewbook, picked it up from a sea of others, opened the cover. It’s no accident. You’re here because you have chosen to embark on a creative future. You’re here because art is the thing that drives you. It’s how you engage with the world. You take risks, fail courageously, and experiment rigorously.
OUR PHILOSOPHY CAN BE SUMMED UP BY A SINGLE (COMPLEX) PROPOSITION:
WE BELIEVE THAT ART AND IDEAS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. ARE YOU READY?
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Performance by Tim Sullivan’s New Genres class on the rooftop amphitheatre at SFAI—Chestnut Street Campus.
Rigo 23, One Tree mural. Photo by Trevor Hacker.
Since 1871, we have attracted individuals who push beyond boundaries to discover uncharted artistic terrain. A West Coast legacy of radical innovation grounds our philosophy and fuels a learning approach that is gutsy and transformative.
SFAI’S PHILOSOPHY At SFAI, pushing boundaries is paramount to learning, thinking, and making. Our insatiable curiosity and relentless questioning create a culture that embraces difference and individual expression. We are challenged and inspired by our artistic legacy, but we’re always looking forward— we know that new questions create meaning for the future. SFAI’s cross-disciplinary education provides space to explore the world through art and ideas.
Students in the fountain at SFAI—Chestnut Street Campus, circa 1972. Photo by Richard Laughlin (MFA 1973).
PROGRAMS BFA Art + Technology Film New Genres Painting Photography Printmaking Sculpture
BA History + Theory of Contemporary Art *You can pursue a minor in any of these major programs.
Work by Ahna Fender (BFA Painting) in the SFAI Courtyard.
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Kathryn Bigelow (BFA Painting), The Hurt Locker. Courtesy of Summit Entertainment, LLC.
SFAI’s alumni are a raucous band of outsiders, who also happen to be some of the biggest names in art and culture. Our graduates take diverse and divergent paths, because we foster creativity and critical thinking across all fields, sectors, and media.
— KATHRYN BIGELOW (BFA PAINTING) ACADEMY AWARD, BEST DIRECTOR AND BEST PICTURE, THE HURT LOCKER, 2008
LIVING LEGACY: SFAI ALUMNI TRAILBLAZERS Environmental entrepreneur ROXANNE QUIMBY Founder of Burt’s Bees Creative superstar ANNIE LEIBOVITZ Portrait photographer Art renegade BARRY McGEE Painter and street artist Academy Award–winner KATHRYN BIGELOW Director of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty
SFAI alumni make art, open businesses, found companies, partner with galleries, become curators at influential museums, launch publications, develop educational programs, write essays, teach, and always continue to learn and make.
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...ART SCHOOL QUESTIONS BECOME LIFE QUESTIONS.
Hyperrealist mastermind KEHINDE WILEY Renaissance-style painter of President Barack Obama’s portrait for the Smithsonian MacArthur “Genius” Award Recipient TOBA KHEDOORI Master of the exquisite in the everyday Kehinde Wiley (BFA Painting), Barack Obama, 2018.
Annie Leibovitz (BFA Photography), John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Rolling Stone Issue 335, 1981.
WE KNEW THEM WHEN
“I HAD A GREAT TIME AT SFAI.
Social and public art visionary RIGO 23 Painter of the famous ONE TREE mural Contemporary photographer CATHERINE OPIE Documentarian of the human condition Environmental advocate KAREN TOPAKIAN Board chair of Greenpeace Indie crooner DEVENDRA BANHART Artist and lyrical craftsman
WHO’S HERE?
SFAI students are too unique to be quantified, but we can give you a rundown of the “facts.”
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UNDERGRADUATES
SFAI CAMPUS Art + Epic Views + Diego Rivera Mural + More Art + Secrets + Labyrinthine Hallways + Art Again + Friends + Collaborators + YOU SFAI is a place of hidden histories, tucked into corners of the campus and literally carved into the walls. The past and present of making, living, and breathing art coexist here.
GRADUATES (including post-bac students)
—
UNDERGRADUATES —
19 21% 79%
COUNTRIES
INTERNATIONAL
TRADITIONAL COLLEGE AGE (17–24)
37% 63% 93%
SFAI’S CHESTNUT STREET CAMPUS HAS:
+ Studios and classrooms (with individual studios for honors students)
+ Diego Rivera Gallery—home to an iconic mural painted by Diego Rivera himself, and a student-run space that provides opportunities to curate and exhibit work + Prentice and Paul Sack Still Lights Galleries for photo-based work
+ Walter and McBean Galleries—a professional exhibition space featuring work by international contemporary artists
+ Anne Bremer Memorial Library with 32,500 books and exhibition catalogues, a rare artists’ books collection, videos and DVDs, subscriptions to more than 200 periodicals, and a collection of frescos lining the main reading room
+ State-of-the-art digital labs supporting sound, photography, film, video, design, 3D modeling, animation, web programming, and printmaking + Rooftop amphitheater + SFAI Café
MALE
FEMALE
FULL-TIME
Plein Air Painting, 2014.
WE BELIEVE IN ALTERNATIVE MEASURES OF SUCCESS. 5
ALUMNI ART SPACES + VENTURES Everywhere you look, you’ll see art, art spaces, pop-ups, and small businesses founded by SFAI alumni. When you come to study here, you become a part of all this—it’s like walking into a vast professional network of artists from the moment you step through the doors.
CHECK OUT THESE SPACES, AND LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. TAG #SFAI AGGREGATE SPACE ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS BASS & REINER CITY LIMITS GALLERY COLPA PRESS EMBARK GALLERY EVER GOLD [PROJECTS] GALLERY 16 OFF SPACE ROMER YOUNG GALLERY ROOT DIVISION ROYAL NONESUCH GALLERY
GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOUR NEW ART SCENE
R/SF PROJECTS
SFAI.EDU/ALUMNIVENTURES
PEOPLE I’VE LOVED
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Bass & Reiner Gallery, San Francisco. Courtesy Bass & Reiner Gallery.
With eclectic artist spaces and pop-up projects around nearly every corner, students quickly become enmeshed in the boundary-breaking cultural landscape of the Bay Area. Ample green space, underground music venues, world-class museums, spirited technological innovations, and proximity to the ocean just add to the experience.
Owen Takabayashi (BFA Painting) installation outside Ever Gold Gallery, San Francisco. Courtesy the artist and Ever Gold Gallery.
San Francisco is incomparably alive with art, and SFAI is your gateway to the cultural scene.
Seminar room at SFAI—Fort Mason Campus. Photo by Bruce Damonte.
URBAN CONTEXT
RESIDENCE HALL SCENE
LIVING IN THE CITY
SFAI’s Residence Halls are 1.3 miles from Chestnut Street Campus giving you access to the city as an extension of your studio. New undergraduates 19 years old or younger are required to live in campus housing for the first year, which is a great way for students to become an immediate part of the open and supportive peer community at SFAI. Resident advisors (RAs) also live in the residence halls, and help to ensure a safe, inclusive, and fun environment.
THE RESIDENCE HALLS HAVE:
+ Special events like Taco Tuesdays, movie nights, trips to Golden Gate Park and vintage shopping in the Mission, gallery openings, and game nights + Lively community of artists + Wi-fi and shared computers + TVs with cable + Recreation room with foosball table, pool table, and TV + Counseling services + Full communal kitchen + Easy access to public transportation + Coin-operated washers and dryers + Front desk security
+ Full access to SFMOMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum
HEY TRANSFERS! Thirty percent of SFAI students enter as transfers—we value the depth and range of experience that transfer students bring to the community, and we make it easy for students to transfer credit and make the transition.
FIND OUT MORE
SFAI.EDU/TRANSFER-TO-SFAI
IMAGE CREDITS: (top) SFAI Students and PreCollege Residence Advisors at a residence hall dance party. Photo by Miles Roa. (bottom) Filmmaking in the Residence Halls. Photo by Kiersten Mercado.
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Brett Reichman’s Anatomy class. Photo by Katrina Herman.
PROGRAMS At SFAI, curiosity and questioning are central to learning. The undergraduate degree trajectory is as individual as each SFAI artist. Students use the courses and majors to forge their own pathways of study, and bolster the core curriculum with electives across mediums and fields.
John Roloff's Sculpture Class on the roof of SFAI—Chestnut Street Campus
Through cross-disciplinary course work, independent studio time, dialogue and collaboration with peers and faculty, immersive history and theory seminars, and exhibitions and lectures on campus, SFAI’s undergraduates become the agents of their own creativity and education.
WE EMBODY AN INTENSE CRITICALITY THAT IS SOMETIMES UNNERVING. SFAI IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. 8
“THE FIRST TIME I WALKED TALK IT OUT: CRITIQUE The critique process is central to an SFAI education. In all studio courses, each student has the opportunity to present work for discussion. Though every critique is different depending on the interests and practices of the faculty and students, most will include analyses of concept and form, artistic intention, and the relationship of the work to art history and contemporary art. Regardless of the medium that is being discussed, critiques help students hone critical thinking skills.
ON CAMPUS I REMEMBER BEING STRUCK BY HOW INTERDISCIPLINARY SFAI IS. I SAW FOLKS WORKING IN ALL DIFFERENT MEDIUMS. THE CONSTRAINTS I ASSOCIATED WITH OTHER ART INSTITUTIONS WEREN’T PRESENT HERE. THAT’S WHEN I KNEW SFAI WAS FOR ME. — CURTIS REID HENDERSON (BFA NEW GENRES)
ART + TECHNOLOGY Art + Technology (A+T) uses tools to learn, activate ideas, and communicate meaning through storytelling and public engagement. Our program challenges aspiring artists to think about the definitions and expressions of tools for aestheticizing ideas and complexity in the world. At SFAI, Art + Technology students will learn to use art to position generative metaphors in diverse public spaces, as well as build critical narratives that extend well beyond the self-reflexivity of technology discourses. A focus of A+T is to explore mediums via hacking, modifying, mixing, re-mixing, and re-cycling electronic and non-electronic technologies. SFAI’s A+T program is a place where students learn to create immersive, responsive, and interactive installations and performances that include expressions of sonic, haptic, kinetic, and visual media, as well as other forms.
THEY ADDRESS QUESTIONS SUCH AS: + What will the future look like, and how will it shift our interactions with objects? + How can artists appropriate technology for creative and critical interventions?
PAST COURSES + Structural Drawing/Design Visualization + Wearable Electronics
Radio Healer Animal Mother Moves the Four Winds of Rush Hour 2016
+ Typography: Context and Practice + Data Sonification for Sound Art + Hacking Visual Technologies + DIY Culture: Intervention with Everyday Things
WE BELIEVE IN CHALLENGING CONVENTION. Laetitia Sonami, Visiting Faculty in Art + Technology.
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George Kuchar filming in Studio 8.
Still from VR film by Miguel Novelo (BFA Film).
FILM
Our film program investigates the full range of moving-image genres including experimental, narrative, documentary, animation and hybrid forms. Students learn the craft of filmmaking from “script to screen” through courses that enable them to realize their ideas. Film courses make use of both celluloid and digital—blending and learning from the similarities and differences between old school and new school. SFAI has a flexible program, keeping current with the ever-changing digital arena including multi-platform and alternative distribution. Students are encouraged to push the boundaries of the medium by integrating film with gallery-based objects, performance, and sound-based works. Students leave the program having explored a variety of methods of display—ranging from traditional theatrical screening, to single- and multi-channel installation, to alternative contexts such as interactive VR formats.
PAST COURSES + Filmmaking Fundamentals
+ Global Art Cinema: Filmmaker As Rebel
+ Digital Cinematography
+ Documentary Filmmaking
+ Stop-Motion
+ Personal Cinema + Soundscape 5.1
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THE GHOST OF GEORGE KUCHAR If the walls of SFAI’s infamous Studio 8 could talk, they would tell tales of all-night film sessions, slapdash performances, and boundary-breaking genre experiments. This was where the legendary George Kuchar—SFAI’s beloved faculty member—conducted film projects and defined his lo-fi aesthetic through the courses AC/DC Psychotronic Teleplays and Electro-graphic Sinema. Today, the Film program is led by the incomparable Christopher Coppola—who guides students through the production of full-length features and a weekly documentary-style reality show that digs into questions about what art and an arts education mean for SFAI students. Luz Olivia (BFA Film) develops 16mm film in Studio X.
NEW GENRES New Genres at SFAI has strong roots in conceptual art, Fluxus, and other avant-garde art practices. The discipline carries a legacy of irreverence that is often linked to video, performance, installation, social practice, and site-specific work. The artist’s concept and intentions comes first, while the most appropriate medium or form is chosen subsequently in order to get the idea best across. New Genres is inherently cross-disciplinary and category-defying. Students are tasked with responding to the current cultural and sociopolitical landscape, and to find the best means of expression for each individual work. New Genres courses are laboratories for experimentation and discovery. We challenge you to tell us what New Genres is and can be.
PAST COURSES + Performance/Sound/Language + Photoworks: Conceptual Photography
+ Issues in Contemporary Art: Collecting and Accumulating + Conceptual Drawing
+ Installation Themes and Strategies for Moving Pictures Practice + Experiments in Narrative
FLASHBACK: 1979
COURSE CATALOGUE
BEGINNING VIDEO/PERFORMANCE WITH HOWARD FRIED CLASS DEFIES DESCRIPTION + TEACHER DEFIES DESCRIPTION + TEACHER DEFIES CLASS DESCRIPTION + TEACHER DEFIES CONVENTION + STUDENTS DEFY CONVENTIONS + STUDENTS DEFY CONVENTIONS TEACHER + ART DEFIES AUTHORITY + REVOLUTION DEFIES AUTHORITY + ART DEFIES REVOLUTIONARY AUTHORITY Performance by Nathalie Brilliant (MFA New Genres) in the Diego Rivera Gallery.
WE BELIEVE THAT DEFINITIONS ARE SUBJECTIVE AND EVEREVOLVING. WE KNOW THAT SFAI IS NO EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE. 11
Galeana Fraiz (BFA Painting), La Dulce Espera, 2018.
Daniela Parrado working on a painting. Photo by Hewitt Photography.
PAINTING
The Painting program at SFAI has been at the forefront of many important historical developments, including Social Realism, Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area Figuration, the California Funk Movement, and the street art-inspired projects of the Mission School. This pluralistic history informs the contemporary moment where all possibilities are valued, from traditional approaches on canvas to interdisciplinary painting practices. At SFAI, the ever-expanding definition of painting is affirmed by a philosophically diverse faculty enthusiastic about a wide range of approaches to material and conceptual solutions. Faculty challenge students to ask bold questions and to develop their own authentic approach to painting.
PAST COURSES + Painting I / Painting II
+ Painting as Protest
+ Polymer Painting: Acrylic Reconsidered
+ Documentary Painting
+ Abstraction: Politics and Possibilities
+ Beyond the Frame: Expanded Painting + The Great Outdoors
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“WHAT SFAI REALLY
CULTIVATES IS YOUR THING… Student Ting Jie Huang (BFA Painting) painting in class. EVEN IF THE WORK THAT I MAKE IS INCREDIBLY WEIRD, I WANT IT TO BE WEIRD, BECAUSE IT’S ME. AND WHEN PEOPLE HAVE CERTAIN RESERVATIONS ABOUT MAKING SOMETHING, I MAKE SURE TO TELL THEM: NO HOLDS BARRED. REMOVE THE FILTERS, AND JUST DO INTUITIVELY WHAT YOU WANT. — ALEX ZIV (BFA + MFA PAINTING)
PHOTOGRAPHY Photography at SFAI is a visual and conceptual tool, a way to construct and complicate narrative, and a means to document the world. All forms of photography are fostered here, because we believe that your ideas—not the medium itself—are the most important aspect of the work. SFAI is home to the first “fine art” photography program in the country (founded by Ansel Adams), and we’re still the place where groundbreaking images are made. Students work in both digital and analogue formats with the opportunity to experiment with a variety of photographic processes and print surfaces, while considering issues around representation, scale, installation, and audience. In an image-saturated world, SFAI challenges artists to define new image-making vocabularies.
PAST COURSES
+ Introduction to Photography and the Darkroom
+ Introduction to Photography as the Digital Medium
+ Large Format and Western Landscape Photography + Creative Non-Fiction Photography
+ Digital Bookmaking and Publishing + Sacred and Profane I and II
+ After Image: Photography in the Digital Age
+ Beyond What’s Out There: Constructed Photography
Mengmeng Lu (MFA Studio Art), The Vexed Men, 2018.
“A LOT OF ART
SCHOOLS TEACH YOU TECHNIQUE. AT SFAI, THEY TEACH YOU TO SEE. — ANNIE LEIBOVITZ (BFA PHOTOGRAPHY) Alexander Newman (BFA Photography), The Birth of Venus/Three Venuses, 2017.
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PRINTMAKING
Asuka Ohsawa instructs students in Printmaking.
The printmaking curriculum at SFAI provides students the opportunity to work with a wide range of printmaking mediums including lithography, intaglio, relief, screenprinting, letterpress, artists’ books, monoprinting, and digital printmaking.
“A REALLY GREAT ARTIST AND
INFLUENTIAL FRIEND OF MINE, ASHLEY BOLINE, TOOK MY HAND AND WALKED ME THROUGH THE FRONT DOORS OF 800 CHESTNUT WHEN I WAS A VERY YOUNG MAN. I THINK ABOUT ALL THE WEIRD KIDS AND TEACHERS, HOW WE ALL CAME TOGETHER IN SF AT 800 CHESTNUT. IT’S ONE OF THE STRONGEST ART COMMUNITIES I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED WITH. SFAI IS STEEPED IN SF ART HISTORY...THE REAL DEAL. ITS LOCATION AND RELAXED CAMPUS MAKE IT ONE OF THE LAST GREAT ART SCHOOLS IN AMERICA.
Bojana Rankovic (BFA Printmaking), The Golden Apple Tree and the Nine Peahens, 2018.
— BARRY McGEE (BFA PRINTMAKING)
PAST COURSES + Lithography I + Relief Printing I + Screenprinting I + Etching I
Through the tactile experience of image- and object-making, students explore the traditions and unique potentials of printmaking as an artistic medium and a cultural practice. Emphasis is placed upon the development of critical ability to examine such concepts as multiplicity, reproducibility, and the “matrix” of the print within the wider world of global contemporary art practice, ranging from “democratic” to “high art” forms. In addition, students are encouraged to expand the idea of work presentation and explore the full range of exhibition possibilities from traditional print editions to books, three-dimensional forms, time-based mediums, installations, and other interdisciplinary approaches.
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+ Monoprint and Collage + Art of the Street + Letterpress for Artists + Multiplicity
+ Artists’ Books: Structure and Ideas
Student Julia Fairbrother (BFA Film) gets feedback on a project.
Work by Oliver Hawk Holden (BFA Sculpture).
Sculpture by Stuart Jennings Mason (BFA Sculpture). Photo by Alex Peterson (BFA Painting).
SCULPTURE
Calvin Wong (BFA Printmaking) working in the ceramics studio.
“AT SFAI, I FOUND MYSELF
IN THIS KIND OF ALTERNATE REALITY IN WHICH THE SORTS OF IDEAS AND CONCEPTS THAT I’D BEEN STRUGGLING WITH MY WHOLE LIFE SUDDENLY DID NOT SEEM SO ALIENATING— IN FACT, THEY WERE POINTS OF CONNECTION WITH PEOPLE. THIS SCHOOL HAS TOTALLY TRANSFORMED THE WAY I SEE MYSELF IN THIS WORLD AND THE POSSIBILITIES I HAVE FOR THE FUTURE. — SARAH-DAWN ALBANI (BFA SCULPTURE)
Sculpture at SFAI hinges on the interplay of the material and conceptual. Questions of site, scale, place, and object take a prominent role. Students make diverse work ranging from objects in ceramics and clay to site-specific installations and ephemeral projects in light and sound. All of this is collected under the gamut of sculpture, because all of these forms advance concept, material, and intention in three dimensions. SFAI's facilities cover work in wood, metal, ceramics, plaster, textiles, and assemblage. We are here to help you realize almost any project you can dream up, and we encourage work that stretches the boundaries of this always-fluctuating discipline.
PAST COURSES + 3D Strategies I: Beginning Sculpture
+ Art Like Architecture
+ Ceramics I: Fabrication
+ Survival With + Without Technology
+ Nomadic Structures
+ Site/Context: Transnature 15
HISTORY + THEORY OF
CONTEMPORARY ART History + Theory of Contemporary Art (HTCA) challenges students to engage critically with global art and culture. Emphasizing research, questioning, critical thinking, analysis, and writing, HTCA at SFAI prepares students to become critics and scholars of contemporary art history and theory.
THE CURRICULUM LOOKS AT QUESTIONS SUCH AS: + What is the role of the artist or art historian as interventionist or activist? + How have new technologies and globalization changed art or its analysis? + What is the relationship between art and power? + What connections can be made across times, places, and cultures? Studying art history in the SFAI environment uniquely positions scholars to respond to contemporary art practices in immersive and immediate ways. The cross-pollination of art and scholarship here is palpable—students exchange creative ideas in courses, exhibitions, collaborations, publications, and research projects. As an HTCA student, you are surrounded by art and artists—every aspect of the campus is your research library.
PAST COURSES + Art Since 1945
“IN GOING TO COLLEGE, I
REALLY WANTED A SELF-DRIVEN, SELF-DIRECTED PROGRAM, AND IN MANY WAYS THAT’S WHAT I’VE FOUND: THE FREEDOM TO ASK ANY QUESTION I WANTED. YOU SHOULD COME HERE IF YOU WANT TO BE CHALLENGED TO MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS AND THINK INDEPENDENTLY AND CRITICALLY. …ART SCHOOL CAN BE SCARY, BUT I THINK THAT THOSE PLACES OF FEAR ARE SOME OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PLACES AS AN ARTIST. THOSE PLACES OF INSECURITY, AND UNCERTAINTY, AND AMBIGUITY, AND AMBIVALENCE—ALL THOSE LEAD TO ORIGINAL THOUGHT AND IDEAS. — BENJAMIN ASHLOCK (BFA NEW GENRES)
+ Global Anxieties: Sculpture’s Disappearances, 1957–1980 + Dialogues in Contemporary Art: Theory and Practice + Queer Visual Politics + Origins of Art & Technology: The Electronic Body + Bay Area Performance History: Lola Montez to Lil B + Selfie: Representing Autobiography in Contemporary Art
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LET THE EXPERMENTS BEGIN! YOUR FIRST YEAR AT SFAI
SFAI considers you an artist from the moment you step on campus. The SFAI Core curriculum—encompassing studio work, art history, and liberal arts—brings students into the academic fold and enables them to customize their own course of study. Your first year at SFAI is all about experimentation and creative growth, and SFAI encourages you to try many different kinds of courses and art mediums. You don’t have to wait until you’ve fulfilled foundation-year requirements to embark on an interdisciplinary path here.
STUDIO COURSES BFA students take 72 units in studio courses of the 120 required to graduate. Of the studio units, 36 are taken in electives across any of the major disciplines—Art + Technology, Film, New Genres, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, and Sculpture—and the remaining 36 are taken in the student’s major. This structure provides nearly boundless opportunity for experimentation, and encourages each student-artist to create a pathway of study that is as individual as each artist.
ART HISTORY Art history is continually re-examined through new research, methodologies, and interpretations. SFAI’s required art history courses equip students to think rigorously and critically about cultural production across times, places, and societies. BFA students complete 15 units in art history, including a course on the history of their major. + Global Art History (prehistory to the Middle Ages) + Modernity and Modernism (the Renaissance to the mid-twentieth century) + Art Since 1945 (art in North America and Europe from 1945–present)
STUDIES IN GLOBAL CULTURES This requirement may be fulfilled through a range of studio, art history, social science, and humanities courses. CRITICAL THEORY A CRITICAL THEORY B + Radical and Revolutionary Theory + Trauma, Resilience, and Creative Practice + “Real Live Girl”: Theory and Politics of Gender and Sexuality
LIBERAL ARTS
WE EMBRACE RISK AND UNDERSTAND THAT FAILURE IS INTRINSIC TO LEARNING AND MAKING.
Liberal Arts at SFAI offers students grounding in the humanities and the social/natural sciences, while also opening up this terrain to the visual arts. With course topics ranging from the mathematics of interactive media to urban ecology to the politics of gender and sexuality, students delve into concept-driven analyses of literature, history, philosophy, theory, and criticism. Liberal Arts Requirements: 3 units in each area of study SAMPLE COURSES + English Composition A: Investigation and Writing + English Composition B: Self-Portraiture and the Autobiographical Artist + Food, Culture, and Society + Animal(s) and Human(s) + Pop Culture and American Identity Formation 17
SFAI’s faculty members are here because of your work. They are passionate. They are critical. They are quirky and irreverent. They are acclaimed artists and scholars of every stripe. They bring SFAI to life, and their pursuits are as varied as SFAI’s course offerings. Want to make a feature film? Find out about eco-systems and public art? Make a hyperrealist painting? Plan and execute a multimedia installation? Render the human form? Learn about a specific movement or historical period? Whatever your interests, SFAI’s faculty members are here to help you push beyond artistic boundaries. 18
Faculty Ebitenyefa Baralaye assists student in studio.
FACULTY
HERE’S A SELECTION OF WHO’S ON CAMPUS: TARAVAT TALEPASAND Want to express and explore complex questions of identity through painting and multimedia installation? Talk to Taravat, SFAI professor and champion of upcoming artists. LINDA CONNOR Want to understand how to make a landscape sublime? Go to Linda—SFAI’s resident master of light and shadow. CHRISTOPHER COPPOLA Christopher makes zombie films with his students, sometimes brings his cat to campus, and is generally a presence to be reckoned with, brimming with creative energy for the next big project. DEWEY CRUMPLER You can find Dewey philosophizing with students on the meaning of life through art—his booming voice traveling across campus, attracting mere passersby to his revelatory talks. In less dramatic moments, he makes paintings that interrogate globalization and cultural commodification.
Taravat Talepasand, The Censored Garden, 2008.
EBITENYEFA BARALAYE Ebi is a sculptor, designer, and two-time AICAD Fellowship winner with a history spanning Nigeria, the Caribbean, and the United States. Explore themes of spirituality, ethnicity, utility, and personal narrative through sculpture with Ebi’s guidance. MADS LYNNERUP Mads is SFAI’s New Genres director who is an expert in multimedia work. His practice incorporates video, performance, printmaking, and more. Want to learn to think even farther outside the box? Let Mads guide you. CRISTÓBAL MARTÍNEZ Want to discuss complications within sites of dromological, spatial, social, cultural, political, ecological, and economic anxiety with a brilliant artist-scholar? Talk to Cristóbal. LINDSEY WHITE Lindsey keeps SFAI on the pulse of contemporary photography. An artist and co-founder of the infamous exhibition-making collaborative Will Brown, her work presents the impossible in everyday life through the language of magic and comedy.
MEET THE REST OF THE TEAM
SFAI.EDU/FACULTY
VISITING ARTISTS
SUPPORT FOR STUDENTS
Ingrid LaFleur, Right In. Photo by Dogon Krigga.
SFAI provides transitional, academic, personal, and social support to help students thrive at school and beyond. ACADEMIC RESOURCE CENTER (ARC) ARC offers academic advising, tutoring and student success workshops, which provide students with the necessary support to stay on track with their degrees.
CAREER RESOURCES SFAI’s Office of Student Affairs supports the academic, artistic, and professional development of students and alumni by providing professional tips tailored to the needs of art students.
COMMITTEE ON DIVERSITY AND EQUITY (CODE) Composed of students, faculty, and staff, the Committee on Diversity and Equity (CODE) recommends, formulates, and advances institutional policies aimed to ensuring an inclusive community at SFAI. Central to this aim is analyzing where and how academic and administrative programs and practices can be further developed in line with our institutional philosophy.
There’s a constant rotation of visiting artists and scholars on campus. You can find them talking to students, presenting a lecture, giving insight on the latest exhibition in the Walter and McBean Galleries, or leading a collaboration off site. Our visitors are an integral part of the community. They provide direct access to the art and ideas of our time. RECENTLY + Benjamin Britton
+ Annie Leibovitz
+ Guillermo Galindo
+ Rudy Lemke
+ Aaron Getty
+ Narcissister
+ Mike Henderson
+ Jenny Odell
+ Mildred Howard
+ Gala Porras-Kim
+ Isaac Julien
+ Xiaoyu Weng
COUNSELING SERVICES Counseling Services provide personal, confidential counseling during the academic year for all registered students, free of charge.
SFAI DIVERSITY STATEMENT Our community embraces differences in gender expression and identity, age, culture, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, physical ability, learning style, religion, occupation, nationality, immigration status, socio-economic status, and the many forms of composite subjectivity and live experience that span these differences. This multiplicity of voices has helped to make SFAI the influential and inspiring institution that it is today. SFAI declared itself a sanctuary campus which affirms our values of inclusivity and non-discrimination of all community members, regardless of citizenship status.
LEARN MORE
SFAI.EDU/DIVERSITY 19 19
APPLY
FINANCIAL AID
SFAI’s admissions process is highly personalized.
At SFAI, an arts education is an investment in you and your future as an artist, out-of-the-box thinker, and alternative culture-maker.
From day one, you’ll be matched with an Admissions Counselor who will advise you, help prepare your portfolio, and walk you through the application process. We’re interested in you and who you will become—and that interest begins with the very first inquiry. GET THE DETAILS YOU NEED TO APPLY
SFAI.EDU/UNDERGRADADMISSIONS
VISIT SFAI’s campus pulses with discovery, questions, and bold ideas. Experience it in person. Schedule a campus tour with your Admissions Counselor or join us for an admissions event. You can also combine your tour with an informal portfolio review. START THE DIALOGUE + SCHEDULE TODAY
SFAI.EDU/VISIT 800.345.SFAI ADMISSIONS@SFAI.EDU 20
That’s why SFAI is committed to helping you find the resources you need to access the best possible education. Eighty percent of SFAI students receive some form of financial aid, and SFAI pledges over $6 million to students each year. In addition to SFAI scholarships and grants, students are considered for federal and state grants, loans, and work study. To be considered for SFAI Grants, domestic students must file a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). The FAFSA can be filled out online at fafsa.ed.gov, and SFAI’s FAFSA code is 003948. California residents may also be eligible for the Cal Grant program and should complete the FAFSA and submit their GPA verification form before the March 1st deadline.
SCHOLARSHIPS Scholarships are merit based and all students who complete their application will be automatically considered for our scholarship programs based on the materials submitted. LEARN MORE
SFAI.EDU/FINANCIALAID
CAN’T WAIT FOR ART SCHOOL? SFAI’s PreCollege program for artists ages 16–18 is a four-week, fourcollege-credit course of study that prepares students for art college. GET READY
SFAI.EDU/PRECOLLEGE
SFAI, a nonprofit institution, is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). SFAI is also a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD).
Chestnut Street Campus 800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133
sfai.edu
@SFAIofficial
immaterial.sfai.edu