Pedagogy / CCA Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice

Curatorial Research Bureau at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is the hub of learning for California College of the Arts Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice. The graduate seminars are held at YBCA inside the CRB, a combined bookshop, exhibition, and public program where students intersect with rotating book inventories, participate in academic and public programs, and meet visiting practitioners. Students are integrated into the institutional infrastructure at YBCA by sitting in on planning meetings, bearing witness to conversations among curators and administrators about upcoming exhibitions, programs, and marketing.

In addition to the learning site YBCA offers, the graduate program focuses on the intellectual, creative, and analytic qualities needed to participate in and contribute to the discourse of contemporary art. Drawing in part from the history of art and design, the program provides students academic resources and direction needed for engaging critically with contemporary culture. The program strives to provide students a broad perspective of the curator as a productive agent and mediator, a researcher who sees context as a valuable asset, building connections among artists, ideas, institutions, public space, online technologies, and their audiences.

Pedagogy / Fall 2019 Seminars

Featured

Documenta 11, curated by the first non-Western director, Okwui Enwezor, in 2002, serves as the departure point for a study of activity in exhibitions, institutions, and publications around the globe in order to define and analyze situations wherein the contemporary art world of the West has influenced an aesthetic of the postcolonial. Students are introduced and become familiar with a discourse surrounding a selection of international exhibitions, institutions, and publications in order to articulate and traces situations in art over the past two or more decades where postcolonialism is increasingly aestheticized, from the art presented at major international exhibitions to the work seen at smaller institutions and informal arts initiatives.

Professor: James Voorhies
Convenes: Tue, 8:30–11:30am
Location: Curatorial Research Bureau
CCA Enrollment: CURPR 6020-2

Artists and Designers

This course considers critical strategies of writing as a profession, focusing largely on the dynamic and creative sphere of arts publishing. Studies focus on the state of the field by assessing art writing and criticism from the site of diverse publications in print and online art journals, newspapers, blogs, and magazines. Special attention is paid to thinking expansively about where art writing and criticism can “live” and the many forms it can take from a zine, graphic novel, infographic, and video, to a meme, creative writing, poetry, or social media. Students conduct, document, and present studio visits and interviews with artists, with a view to accumulating a substantial body of knowledge about contemporary artistic practice.

Professor: Frances Richard
Convenes: Tue, 12–3 pm
Location: Curatorial Research Bureau
CCA Enrollment: CURPR 6060-2

Exhibition Design

This class positions exhibition making as an interdisciplinary practice, that lies at the heart of institutional design and programming. In addition to surveying the contemporary landscape of institutional structures, students will engage in the discourse around exhibition design, and undertake collaborative, project-based opportunities to develop installation strategies, as well as to consider techniques of visual and spatial design across all aspects of an exhibition's manifestation, from display furniture and materials, to the catalogue and publication.

Professor: Christopher Hamamoto
Convenes: Wed, 4–7 pm
Location: Curatorial Research Bureau
CCA Enrollment: CURPR 6150-3

Thesis Project 2

The thesis is an extended essay in an area of independent research that relates to current art practice. This seminar provides sustained practical and theoretical support to develop the skills through which to write a thesis.

Professor: J. Myers-Szupinska
Convenes: Tue, 12–3 pm
Location: CCA SF Campus, Room GC12
CCA Enrollment: CURPR 6400-1

Exhibition Project: R&D 2

Students continue to work together on the organization and presentation of their thesis exhibition, as well as related catalogue and interpretation program. This class supports the compilation and collation of materials for the exhibition publication, and each student will fulfill one or more roles related to the process of producing the publication.

Professor: Christina Linden
Convenes: Thu, 1–4 pm
Location: Curatorial Research Bureau
CCA Enrollment: CURPR 6240-1

Exhibition Project: Org 2

Students continue to work together on the organization and presentation of their thesis exhibition, as well as related catalogue and interpretation program. This class supports the organizational and logistical aspects of the process, and each student will fulfill one or more roles related to the process of presenting the exhibition.

Professor: Christina Linden
Convenes: Thu, 9 am–12 pm
Location: Curatorial Research Bureau
CCA Enrollment: CURPR 6260-1

Pedagogy / Curriculum

The program’s first year offers courses focused on exhibitions—history, forms, and design—combined with courses in contemporary and global art history, theory, and criticism, alongside engagements with artworks and artists. The second year concentrates on research-driven and project-based learning with collaboration and mentorship of the faculty, resulting in a written thesis project (pursued individually) and a collectively authored exhibition at CCA’s renown Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts.→

Meanwhile, the practice of developing conversations and relationships with artists, curators, writers, designers, archivists, and arts administrators is fostered through regular interaction with guests in both classroom settings and public programs at the Curatorial Research Bureau at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Students have opportunities to gain professional experiences in a required internship at cultural institutions in the Bay Area or beyond. Overall, students learn how to conceive and produce exhibitions, public programs, written texts, and artist commissions, in addition to how to connect and distribute curated content to audiences nearby and further afield.

Pedagogy / This is an Exhibition

This Is an Exhibition provides students insight into the complexities of institutions, from organizing exhibitions, public programs, and artist commissions, to fundraising, marketing, and communications through a series of strategically organized meetings with curators and administrators at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and CCA’s Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts.

Pedagogy / Internships and Assistantships

Work experiences providing financial support and professional training are available for students enrolled in the program. A publishing internship is available with the college’s journal, Art Practical, while CCA’s Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts offers a curatorial fellowship. In addition to these opportunities, each graduate student receives an annual teaching assistantship to work with faculty in the Visual and Critical Studies, Fine Arts, and Curatorial Practice graduate programs.

Pedagogy / Fellowship

KADIST San Francisco offers each year a research fellowship to a second-year student or recent alum of CCA’s Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice. The fellowship provides a stipend and an opportunity to work with KADIST curators and director on research related to artists in the collection as part of a new initiative relating to the research and presentation of video artworks. Fellows are required to generate original pieces of writing connected to their research.

Pedagogy / Institution Access

Each student in the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice receives a free membership to YBCA.

Apply

Apply to CCA’s Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice.

Questions? Write to James Voorhies, Chair of the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice.