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).

At the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, which was held in New York City January 2–5, Catherine Whalen presented a paper, “Material Politics: World War I, a Silver Inkstand and Object-based U.S. Cultural Nationalism.” It was part of the session, “War Material: Perspectives on the Study of the Material Culture of Conflict in the United States and Europe.” Other faculty who participated in the conference were David Jaffee, in the panels “What’s the Problem? Turning Teaching Questions into Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Research” and “A Radical Promise? Building Institutional Contexts in this Interdisciplinary Moment”; Andrew Morrall, who presented a paper on “Protestant Family Portraits: Art and Evidence” in the session “Image and Identity in the German Reformation”; and Peter N. Miller, who chaired the panel “Interdisciplinary Institutes and Humanities Research: Europe and the United States.”

On January 23 in Washington, DC, Paul Stirton, as editor of West 86th, participated in a review panel advising the Smithsonian Institution on the development of the journal Archives of American Art.

BGC will be well-represented among the presenters and chairs at the Annual Conference of the College Art Association in New York City February 11–14:

February 11:

Hanna Hölling will present a paper, “Fluxus: What’s the Matter?!” as a part of the session “Preserving the Artistic Legacies of the 1960s and 1970s.”

Debrorah L. Krohn will present a paper, “Perfecting the Past: Period Rooms between Disneyland and the White Box,” as part of the session “The Period of the Period Room: Past or Present?”

February 12:

Paul Stirton will chair the session “The Global History of Design and Material Culture.” One of the speakers is Pat Kirkham, who will discuss her experience editing History of Design: Decorative Arts and Material Culture, 1400–2000 (BGC and Yale University Press, 2013).

Catherine Whalen will chair, with Haneen Rabie, the session entitled “Guerilla Approaches to the Study of Decorative Art and Design: Art History and the ‘Material Turn.’“

February 13:

David Jaffee will present a paper, “Crossing Broadway: New York and Culture of Capital in the Late Nineteenth Century,” as part of the session “New York 1880: Art, Architecture, and the Establishment of a Cultural Capital.”

Kimon Keramidas will present a paper, “The Codex Defamiliarized: Thinking of Publications as Designed Experiences,” as part of the panel, “Art Historical Scholarship and Publishing in the Digital World.”

February 14:

Ittai Weinryb will present a paper, “On the Incantation of the Similar: Heredity and the Matter of the Stars,” as part of the session “The Talisman: A Critical Genealogy, Part II.”