About Vis Arts

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.) in interdisciplinary computing and the arts, media, studio and Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) across painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, computing in the arts, film, video, and photography; as well as a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in art history and a Ph.D. in art and media history, theory and criticism, and a Ph.D. Concentration in Art Practice. 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.

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 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.