Program Description

School of the Art Institute of Chicago


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Since its founding in 1866, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been providing a leading global vision for the education of artists, designers, and others who shape contemporary art practice. SAIC’s primary purpose is to foster the conceptual and technical education of artists, designers, and scholars in a highly professional, studio-oriented, and academically rigorous environment, encouraging excellence, critical inquiry, and experimentation. In 2002, the School was recognized as “the most influential art school in the nation” by a poll conducted by Columbia University and a panel of national art critics. U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked SAIC’s Master of Fine Arts program as number one in the nation.

Some 2,300 undergraduates, over 600 graduate students, and a faculty consisting of artists, designers, and scholars work in an environment that facilitates the exchange of ideas, the sharing of resources, and the critiquing and refining of technical abilities and conceptual issues.

SAIC is distinguished from other art and design schools in the breadth and depth of its curriculum, with more than 900 courses offered each semester. SAIC is committed to interdisciplinary exploration and the awareness that the boundaries between artistic fields are not always easily defined. Students do not declare a major but are free to design a path of study that best suits their creative development. A student may choose to do all their course work in one area of study or amongst multiple department areas. SAIC’s credit/no-credit grading system encourages students to think creatively and to develop the self-motivation necessary for life as a practicing artist, designer, and scholar. SAIC enriches its strong studio program with a first-rate, nationally and regionally accredited liberal arts education, and it has one of the largest art history departments in the nation. SAIC is the only college in the country that offers a systematic series of courses on the history, theory, and philosophical bases of art criticism.

SAIC is located in the heart of downtown Chicago, home to the nation’s second-largest art scene that includes world-class museums, galleries, alternative spaces, and arts organizations. Chicago itself is a vital part of SAIC, as a source of social and cultural activities and the stimulus for ideas and attitudes ultimately expressed through art. Peter Frank, art critic and curator says, “Of all American cities, Chicago has contributed the most solid and distinctive artwork and art thinking. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is at the nucleus of this longstanding distinction.”

Millennium Park, located across the street from SAIC, is a twenty-first-century marvel, and SAIC, its faculty members, and its students played a key role in its realization. One of the signature pieces of public art in the park, the Crown Fountain by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, was created with the assistance of both SAIC students and faculty members, who collaborated with Plensa in producing the 1,000 video portraits that are screened continuously on the fountain’s twin video towers. The park, with its unique mix of art, architecture, and nature, has become an urban oasis for SAIC students.

SAIC maintains two distinctive residence halls with loft-style rooms—each with their own bathroom, kitchen, voicemail, and Internet access. The residence halls offer 24-hour security and controlled access as well as spacious, well-lit studios; lounge rooms with big screen TVs; computer labs; and laundry facilities. Students can immerse themselves in a community of fellow artists, live in the heart of Chicago’s loop, and enjoy conveniences unavailable in most student apartments.

SAIC offers a wide variety of unique resources, beginning with the collection of its sister institution, the Art Institute of Chicago, and its Ryerson Library and Burnham Library of Architecture, the largest art and architecture research libraries in the country. The Gene Siskel Film Center presents significant programs of world cinema and presentations by an international array of film and video artists. SAIC’s Video Data Bank houses more than 1,600 titles and is the leading resource in the country for videotapes by and about contemporary artists. The Poetry Center brings renowned poets and writers to Chicago to share their work with the public.

Additional services include an international student office, a multicultural affairs office, health and counseling services, a learning center (offering support services for students with learning disabilities), and an extensive program for academic advising. SAIC is home to the largest and most successful arts-related Cooperative Education program in the country, providing employment opportunities worldwide. The Career Development Center assists in researching job and grant opportunities, preparing portfolios and artist statements, exploring exhibition possibilities, and understanding the legal aspects of entrepreneurship. The center maintains an online database that lists local and national positions, including freelance, part-time, and full-time employment.

Program Facilities

SAIC’s campus encompasses seven buildings in downtown Chicago, including a 40,000-square-foot permanent exhibition space. There are fully equipped studios for each area of concentration, and the School’s policy allows 24-hour access to facilities.

The Painting and Drawing department has many well-lit studio classrooms, individual space for select undergraduate and graduate students, and space for critiques. Facilities in the sculpture department include a complete woodshop, a welding shop, a bronze and aluminum foundry, a plaster room, and both indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces. A well-equipped metals shop allows for forging, forming, joining, and casting of nonferrous metals. The Printmedia department has a digital platemaker and two-color high-speed offset press and bookbinding facilities.

The Art and Technology department maintains a multimedia authoring suite, an electronics construction shop, a microcontroller development and programming area, a kinetics shop, neon and holography studios, installation space, and MIDI and digital sound systems. The Film, Video, and New Media department has equipment ranging from a unique hand-built image processor to the latest prosumer, professional, and industrial video equipment. Equipment available to students includes digital cameras, projectors, switchers, light kits, and microphones. Professional quality film/video and sound mixing suites, traditional and 3-D animation facilities, and HD video and film production equipment are also available.

The Photography department has a Lambda digital photographic printer; traditional photographic process facilities, including non-silver, color, and black and white printing; and loans of digital, medium-format, and large-format cameras and lighting equipment. The Sound department offers studios and workstations equipped with digital editing systems, multitracks and digital recorders, and several digital and rare vintage analog synthesizers and samplers. A larger configurable space is equipped with a multichannel sound system and ceiling grid that makes it suitable for performances and installations.

The Ceramics department’s facilities include clay mixers, an extruder, a slab roller, complete moldmaking and casting facilities, and several styles of wheels. Diverse firing options in various kiln styles include high- and low-fire oxidation and reduction, soda, and raku. The Visual Communication department’s facilities include state-of-the-art computer labs with color scanners, a copy stand, and spacious studios. Students in the Fashion Design department study design and construction in a spacious facility with industrial-grade equipment. The department houses a Fashion Resource Center, with a collection of worldwide designer garments and a research library with rare books, videotapes, and international publications. The Fiber and Material Studies department has AVL computer looms, more than thirty traditional looms, a large area for hand construction, full facilities for screenprinting on fabric that includes a darkroom for photo-screeners, a computer lab, and a kitchen with industrial washers and dryers used for the setting of dyes.

Architecture, interior architecture, and designed objects equipment and facilities include an advanced output center with ABS plastic rapid prototyper, laser cutter, and large format printers; complete wood and plastic shop with heavy machine tools and a CNC router; separate highly ventilated mold-making room with paint hood, wax and fume hood, and vacu-former; graduate and undergraduate studios with desks, pin up areas, and complete built-in digital audio visual support; the GFRY display studio funded by Motorola Corporation; several critique and exhibition spaces; a materials library; 2-D/slide scanner and projectors; digital copy stand; small model tools; and lecture room. In the new AIADO Design Shop, students can work with both analog fabrication/modeling equipment and digitally controlled (CNC) tools.

Three general-access Media Centers lend thousands of pieces of audiovisual equipment to students. General-access computer labs are equipped with the latest model Apple computers installed with the latest versions of digital video, desktop publishing, 3-D rendering, Web-site authoring, animation, multimedia, graphic, and audio software applications. The workstations are equipped with various flatbed, negative, and slide scanners and Imacon high-end scanners. The lab offers 24-hour access and weekly instructional workshops on specialized equipment. SAIC also has a full-service color digital output Service Bureau equipped with laser cutting and 3-D printing.

The John M. Flaxman Library collections include 60,000 volumes on art and the liberal arts and sciences, 360 periodical subscriptions, films, videos, audiotapes, CDs, microforms, and picture files. The Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection contains more than 3,000 artists’ books, along with a research collection of exhibition catalogs and other related material. The MacLean Visual Resource Center maintains a noncirculating collection of more than 500,000 slides.

Faculty, Resident Artists, and Alumni

Faculty members are selected for their skills, insight, and dedication as teachers and for their professional accomplishments as artists, designers, and scholars. There are currently over 600 full- and part-time faculty members, among them NEA grant recipients, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship recipients, and Rockefeller Foundation grant recipients. SAIC faculty members have their work exhibited in museums, galleries, and festivals nationally and internationally. They publish books, plays, poetry, and criticism; organize and curate exhibitions; and design, build, and preserve buildings throughout the world. Each year, 100 or more well-known visiting artists, including poets, political activists, designers, and visual artists, present workshops and provide individual student critiques through the Visiting Artists Program. Notable alumni include Claes Oldenburg, Ivan Albright, Georgia O’Keefe, David Sedaris, Cynthia Rowley, and Vincente Minnelli.

Student Performance/Exhibit Opportunities

The School’s exhibition spaces include the Betty Rymer Gallery, which highlights work from departments and presents special exhibitions, and Gallery 2, with exhibition space, a performance space, and a space designed for site-specific installations. In addition, Gallery X and the Lounge Gallery, sponsored by the Student Union Galleries, provide exhibition space for currently enrolled students. The Fashion department hosts a fashion show in late spring for students in their second, third, and fourth year. The First-Year Program sponsors ArtBash in the spring of each year, highlighting the work produced in its program.

Off-Campus Arrangements

SAIC’s Mobility Program allows students to attend partner schools within the United States and Canada and includes the New York Studio semester. The School also maintains semester exchange agreements with more than twenty schools in Europe, Asia, and South America, and students may develop their own individual programs. SAIC faculty members also lead study trips during each summer and winter interim to such destinations as Cuba, Czech Republic, Italy, Japan, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico, and Vietnam.

Application Procedures

Deadline--freshmen: June 1; transfers: continuous. Required: essay, high school transcript, college transcript(s) for transfer students, letter of recommendation, portfolio, SAT or ACT test scores. Recommended: minimum 3.0 high school GPA, interview. Auditions held 1 time. Portfolio reviews held continuously on campus and off campus; the submission of slides may be substituted for portfolios required for transfer credit evaluation.

Undergraduate Contact

Scott Ramon, Director, Undergraduate Admissions, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 36 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60603; 312-629-6100, fax: 312-629-6101.

Graduate Contact

Andre Van De Putte, Associate Director, Graduate Admissions, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 36 South Wabash Avenue, Suite 1201, Chicago, Illinois 60603; 312-629-6100, fax: 312-629-6101.