Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events.

Bard Graduate Center advances the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through its object-centered approach to teaching, research, exhibitions, publications, and events.

At BGC, we study the human past and present through their material expressions. We focus on objects and other material forms—from those valued for their aesthetic elements to the ordinary things used in everyday life.

Our accomplished interdisciplinary faculty inspires and prepares students in our MA and PhD programs for successful careers in academia, museums, and the private sector. We bring equal intellectual rigor to our acclaimed exhibitions, award-winning catalogues and scholarly publications, and innovative public programs, and we view all of these integrated elements as vital to our curriculum.

BGC’s campus comprises a state-of-the-art academic programs building at 38 West 86th Street, a gallery at 18 West 86th Street, and a residence hall at 410 West 58th Street. A new collection study center will open at 8 West 86th Street in 2026.

Founded by Dr. Susan Weber in 1993, Bard Graduate Center has become the preeminent institute for academic research and exhibition of decorative arts, design history, and material culture. BGC is an accredited unit of Bard College and a member of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH).

James Turrell Perfumes. Sensorium: Behind the Bottle at Corning Museum of Glass, curated by Julie Bellemare (PhD ’21).

Exhibitions curated by Bard Graduate Center alumni are on view up and down the East Coast and as far west as Santa Fe. The range of scholarship reflected in these exhibitions is as varied as the alumni themselves.

Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum
On view through January 5 and February 16, 2025
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland

Dare Turner (MA ’17, Yurok Tribe) collaborated with Leila Grothe, associate curator of contemporary art, and Elise Boulanger (citizen of the Osage Nation), curatorial research assistant at the Baltimore Museum of Art, on this expansive project that featured a total of nine exhibitions, a catalogue, public programs, an audio guide, staff training, and new interpretive texts for artworks throughout the museum. Three exhibitions remain on view, including Laura Ortman: Wood that Sings and Dana Claxton: Spark through January 5, 2025, and Nicholas Galanin: Exist in the Width of a Knife’s Edge, through February 16, 2025.

Objects USA: 2024
On view through January 10, 2025
R & Company, New York, New York

Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy (MA ’16) cocurated this triennial exhibition with Kellie Riggs. It celebrates the pathbreaking work of some of today’s most innovative American designers and artists.

Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles
On view through February 2, 2025
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Hadley Welch Jensen (MA ’13, PhD ’18) cocurated this exhibition with Rapheal Begay. It showcases more than thirty textiles and related items from the museum’s extensive collection.

Sensorium: Stories of Glass and Fragrance
On view through February 23, 2025
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York

Julie Bellemare (PhD ’21), curator of early modern glass at the Corning Museum, organized this exhibition that explores the millennia-long relationships between glass, perfumery, and the storage of scent.

Naoto Fukasawa: Things in Themselves
On view through April 20, 2025
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Colin Fanning (MA ’13, PhD candidate), assistant curator of European art at the museum, has curated the first major solo presentation of Naoto Fukasawa’s work in the US. Presenting fully realized production designs alongside the studio’s working sketches and models for select projects, Things in Themselves offers a rare opportunity to explore Fukasawa’s design ethos and creative process.

The Art of French Wallpaper Design
On view through May 11, 2025
RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island

Curated by Emily Banas (MA ’15), the museum’s associate curator of decorative arts and design, the exhibition features more than one hundred rare samples of preserved wallpapers, borders, fragments, and preparatory drawings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

From Pineapple to Pañuelo: Philippine Textiles
On view through May 11, 2025
RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island

Angela Hermano Crenshaw (MA ’24, current PhD student) built on research from her qualifying paper to curate this exhibition which presents a selection of the museum’s collection of the semitransparent textiles made in the Philippines in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It highlights the complex production and high level of skill needed to create these fabrics known as piña and abacá.

On Tour: Lafayette, America’s Revolutionary Rock Star
On view through June 1, 2025
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Wintherthur, Delaware

Corinne Brandt (MA ’14) curated this exhibition that commemorates the two-hundredth anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette’s 1824–25 “Farewell Tour” of the United States, exploring Lafayette’s impact on the young nation through a selection of Winterthur memorabilia and objects honoring the Revolutionary War hero.

Interwoven Power: Native Knowledge / Native Art
Ongoing
Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey

Laura J. Allen (MA ’20), curator of Native American art at the museum, orchestrated a reimagined installation of its collection of Indigenous art, in collaboration with Indigenous curators, artists, and scholars.

Toward Joy: New Frameworks for American Art
Ongoing
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn Museum’s reinstallation of its American art galleries benefited from the work of three BGC alumni: Grace Billingslea (MA ’20) curatorial assistant, arts of the Americas and Europe; Liz St. George (MA ’11) assistant curator of decorative arts and design, and Dare Turner (MA ’17), curator of Indigenous art.