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).

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Artillery shed containing 100 untitled works in mill aluminum by Donald Judd, 1982-86, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. All photos by Ivan Gaskell.

On November 4, I boarded a minivan with eight others at the El Paso Airport for the three-hour drive through the northern Chihuahuan Desert to the little town of Marfa, Texas. We were going there to attend a five-day retreat organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to discuss its Panza Collection.

Marfa was founded as a railroad watering stop. In 1973, sculptor Donald Judd (1928-1994) began buying property there, including a disused US Army base, to work undisturbed. His Chinati Foundation, our host, gathered and exhibits in depth his own work and that of fellow artists he admired. His family foundation, which looks after his studios and living spaces, also welcomed us.

Much of our time was spent in a converted army hut, with its door open to the view towards the distant mountains. Between 1991 and 1992, the Guggenheim acquired more than 300 Minimalist and Conceptual works from the Italian collector, Giuseppe Panza. The curator and conservator responsible for them, Jeffrey Weiss and Francesca Esmay, have researched many problematic items. We were in Marfa to discuss how to make that research public.

We also had time to visit the Chinati and Judd Foundation sites: arrays of sculpture by Judd and others, both outdoors and in former army and commercial buildings, and Judd’s residence and studios. The sublimity of Judd’s precisely impersonal constructions in steel, aluminum, or concrete in a vast, stark landscape where time decelerates would convert even a skeptic. We came away with a plan, and—if I am representative—with personal inspirations, too.

—Ivan Gaskell, Professor, Curator and Head of the Focus Gallery Project