Best Sculpture MFA Program & BFA Program

A picture of geometric sculptures on display in a gallery setting

Sculpture Department

SAIC's Sculpture department offers one of the largest, most comprehensive, and diverse programs of its kind in the country.

Sculpture held by two arms, one in a blue long-sleeve shirt, one in a black long sleeve shirt.

Undergraduate Admission Deadline: January 1

Submit your application and portfolio by January 1 for priority fall 2025 merit scholarship consideration.

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Graduate Programs Application Deadline: January 10

Apply to SAIC's Graduate and Post-Bacc programs by January 10 for fall 2025 admission.

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File Your FAFSA

In order to be eligible for need-based aid such as SAIC, state and federal grants, loans and work study you need to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) at fafsa.gov.

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The Sculpture department is situated at the defining edge of contemporary practice and discourse. We practice sculpture at its broadest level of meaning.

Twentieth-century art practice opened up the spaces and materials of sculpture to those of the "real world," and this breadth of vision and experience is reflected in the development of the curriculum and resources, which encompass every material imaginable, leading to the expression of ideas in space. We are committed on levels both international and deeply local to the development of an economically and culturally diverse context for the study of sculpture and with increased attentiveness to environmental responsibility in art-making.

A group of students and faculty members observe a piece up in the galleries.

The Student Experience

The department offers a rigorous mix of conceptual, spatial, material, and process-based challenges through which students learn to understand, negotiate, and contribute to the changing cultural and ecological landscape. Educating thinkers as well as makers, our studio classes and seminars mix technical and material concerns with thematic and critical ones.

Students explore new media, emerging technologies, material invention, socially engaged art, installation and collaboration in conjunction with traditional skills and media such as carving, welding, mold-making, and foundry work.

Three students working on a piece in the wood shop.

Renowned Faculty

Our distinguished faculty members are nationally and internationally renowned artists, fully involved in the exploration and re-examination of the field. They are well-versed in contemporary theoretical debates and committed to building a diverse, exciting environment for the exchange of ideas and the production of culture and are engaged in the ongoing process of redefining the fluid field of sculpture through active practice.

Knowledge Lab

The Knowledge Lab is a program for research and practice where students and faculty engage in intersectional, material, and theoretical work in direct response to our current anthropogenic material and climate crises. The material and resource problems of the present time are novel in human history and our goal is to devise new methods of transdisciplinary and collaborative knowledge production that meet the challenges of our contemporary predicament. Our goal is to address the web of life and to identify new questions to reimagine material futures and generate new knowledge as we move into the future, as we re-imagine our futures. The Knowledge Lab currently hosts a living lab in the Sculpture Courtyard and is developing a Rematerials Lab.