Statement Of Mission

Solidly grounded in an interdisciplinary approach, the visual arts at UCSD are deeply rooted in the concepts of research and development. The Visual Arts Department, one of the most highly ranked art programs within a university in the country, offers Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) across painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, computing in the arts, film, video, photography and criticism; and a Ph.D./M.A. degree in art and media history, theory and criticism. The visual arts program is uniquely situated within one of the greatest research institutions in the country. Its interdisciplinary ethos and tradition of innovation and risk-taking underlie the educational environment at UCSD. While students may choose to focus within one particular area, they are encouraged to push the boundaries of their chosen medium and to reach across media-specific boundaries into new forms of art making.

Founded by some of the country’s leading artists–David and Eleanor Antin, Helen Mayer and Newton Harrison, Allan Kaprow, Manny Farber, Harold Cohen–the visual arts department faculty has evolved to encompass a vibrant range of artists, critics, theorists and historians including Natalie Jeremijenko, Norman Bryson, Rubén Ortiz-Torres, Barbara Kruger, Lev Manovich and many others. Faculty routinely develop organic relationships with colleagues in a variety of departments across the university and within the larger community. It is this conversational model that sets the visual arts at UCSD apart.

Artists at UCSD take advantage of a large megalopolis stretching from Los Angeles across the border to Tijuana. New efforts in the department address issues of trans-nationalism, the border and globalization. Individual research and exploration is complimented by collaborative and public outreach projects. Rather than being sequestered in their studios, students at all levels are expected to actively engage with the department, as well as the larger campus and regional art communities. Students must be able to write and speak about their work and the work of others. Art history and critical theory influence the art practice of studio artists, and conversely, art history/critical theory majors and Ph.D. students may be deeply engaged with issues of contemporary art practice. The faculty in the department's newly established Ph.D. program teach in areas ranging from antiquity to the renaissance, from the Rococo paintings of Watteau to the most cutting edge digital media. In addition to an emphasis on Latin American Art (from the pre-Columbian period to the twentieth-century) the program has a critical mass of scholars working in modern and contemporary art and media history — a rarity in conventional graduate art history departments. The program offers a unique intellectual environment in which exchange and dialogue across disciplinary boundaries within art history and between art practitioners, historians and critics, is openly encouraged.

The department has on-going relationships with many divisions of the university, including literature, humanities, and music, as well as the Center for Latin American Studies, Center for Research for Computing in the Arts, Center for Humanities, the Division of Social Sciences, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Strong ties have also been developed with many regional art institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and InSite in San Diego and Tijuana.

The visual arts department now has over 1,200 majors and minors, and over 60 graduate students. The undergraduate program provides students with a solid liberal arts background and preparatory training for careers as artists, art historians, film and video artists, photographers, digital media artists and art critics. The MFA and Ph.D. programs are highly selective and provide intensive professional training for artists, critics, historians and theorists who wish to pursue advanced research within their areas of interest.

The program has a strong new media component. The Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM) is the fastest growing area of interest on campus. As well as equipment within the department, students have access to resources and opportunities through the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA)–the oldest arts research unit in the University of California system. CRCA facilitates the invention of new art forms that arise out of the developments of digital technologies, with current areas of interest that include interactive networked multimedia, virtual reality, computer-spatialized audio, and live performance techniques for computer music and graphics.