Graduate information session (virtual)
November 12, 2025, 5pm
Chicago Illinois IL 60637
United States
The University of Chicago’s Department of Visual Arts invites you to attend our MFA program’s virtual open house. Register here for an opportunity to meet with faculty and staff and learn more about our two-year MFA program.
Application deadline: January 6, 11:59am, CST.
Program overview
The Department of Visual Arts (DoVA), a department within the Division of the Arts & Humanities at the University of Chicago, and situated in The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, is proud to offer a Masters of Fine Arts.
This two-year MFA program is distinguished in its focused attention on understanding how the pluralism of today’s art making practices relate to one another, and by its attention to creating conversations that bridge between DoVA and other areas of study at the University of Chicago. Our faculty members are diverse in their interests and at different points in their careers. All are committed teachers engaged in a lively and sustained dialogue within the department and deeply engaged with their own work.
Our students work in sculpture, photography, painting, installation, performance, video and new media. We admit students to the program based on the quality of the portfolio, and we consider the level of interest and capacity in engaging this interdisciplinary program within a university environment. We focus on working with our students to develop their work and enabling them to leave the University with the tools to support a lifetime of art making. As part of this process, we encourage students to explore not only the artistic issues pertinent to their work, but also the theoretical, social and historical issues that intersect and bracket it.
Program summary
–Two-year program open to all media
–Admits up to eight students each year
–All MFA students receive a studio space, most with natural light and adjoining a large shared space
–Students work closely with all faculty through required studio visits and critiques
–Students take up to six courses outside of DoVA and have access to the University of Chicago’s academic resources
–Students may receive teaching experience through Teaching Assistantships and the BA/MFA mentoring program
–The program culminates in a group exhibition in the Logan Center gallery, a written thesis abstract, and a final review
Faculty: Mari Eastman, Theaster Gates, Matthew Jesse Jackson, Laura Letinsky (Chair), Geof Oppenheimer, Julia Phillips, Tongji Philip Qian, Jason Salavon, Catherine Sullivan, and Anna Martine Whitehead.
Recent visiting speakers: Magali Lara, Allison Katz, Emilia Kabakov, Kerry Tribe, Sam Contis, Gedi Sibony, vanessa german, Fabiola Torres-Alzaga, Rachel Harrison, B. Ingrid Olson, Sanya Kantarovsky, David Joselit, and more.
Upcoming speakers: Debra Bricker Balken, Nazafarin Lotfi, Win McCarthy, W.J.T. Mitchell, Patrice Renee Washington, and more.
To schedule an in-person tour or to learn more about our program and facilities, please contact: DoVA Office, T 773 753 4821, dova@uchicago.edu.
