History + Theory of Contemporary Art | BA

SFAI’s History +Theory of Contemporary Art (HTCA) program provides an in-depth critical understanding of the history of the ideas, conditions, institutions, and discourses surrounding contemporary art and culture, and the ways that these factors inform the study, interpretation, analysis, and exhibition of art today. Housed in one of the oldest art schools in the county, the program offers students the unique opportunity to develop these studies while mingling with the ghosts of (post)modernism and working side-by-side with current, practicing artists and scholars.

At the program’s end, students pursue a sustained research project of their own design as the culminating capstone to their degree. Emphasizing research, writing, critical thinking, and methods of analysis that value cultural and social differences, HTCA prepares students to become advanced critics and scholars of art history and theory in a global context.

• Students demonstrate a thorough grounding in the liberal arts and an informed acquaintance with quantitative forms of analysis — as assessed by written assignments, class presentations, and projects.
• Students demonstrate general, global knowledge of the history of art and visual culture and substantial and rigorous, cross-cultural knowledge of contemporary artists, art practices, artworks, and exhibitions, with special attention paid to how these discourses and historical figures intersect with critical conversations concerning the production of space — as assessed by analytical written assignments, class presentations and projects that require students to mobilize appropriate theories and criticisms of art.
• Students demonstrate the ability to situate the discourses of art history and visual culture vis-à-vis other disciplines within the liberal arts and natural sciences, and across a variety of situated, globalized perspectives—as assessed by written course assignments, class presentations and projects, and the BA Senior Thesis Project.
• Students demonstrate a thorough grounding in the methodological tools, analytical perspectives, and theoretical frameworks central to the discourses of art history and visual culture — as assessed by written course assignments, class presentations and projects and the successful completion of the Interdisciplinary Research Colloquium and the BA Senior Thesis Project.
• Students demonstrate functional knowledge of the creative process and of the value of creating synergy between a creative practice and rigorous academic investigation — as assessed by successful completion of 12-Credits of studio art courses.
• Students demonstrate an increasingly nuanced and principled understanding of the possible roles of art and the artist in the world, including roles as agents of social and cultural change — as assessed by written course assignments, class presentations and projects and the BA Senior Thesis Project.