CCS BARD

Land Acknowledgement for Bard College

In 2020, Bard College adopted the following land acknowledgement in cooperation with the Stockbridge-Munsee Community: “In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of the land. Today, due to forced removal, the community resides in Northeast Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations, and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands. We understand that our acknowledgment requires those of us who are settlers to recognize our own place in and responsibilities toward addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Munsee and Mohican communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.” Read more about the Bard Land Acknowledgement here.

In 2022, Bard received a transformational endowment gift from the Gochman Family Foundation to support the creation of a Center for Indigenous Studies, faculty appointments and student scholarships, and the appointment of a Fellow in Indigenous Art History and Curatorial Studies at CCS Bard. The first person to hold this position at CCS is Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation), Executive Director and Chief Curator of Forge Project, a Native-led initiative centered on Indigenous art. Learn more about the endowment gift here.

About the Center for Curatorial Studies

Established in 1990, the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard) is an incubator for experimentation in exhibition-making and the leading institution dedicated exclusively to curatorial studies—a discipline exploring the historical, intellectual, and social conditions that inform curatorial practice.

The Center for Curatorial Studies has several interconnected parts:

The Hessel Museum of Art, built in 2006, presents experimental group exhibitions and monographic shows, and also draws from the Marieluise Hessel Collection of Contemporary Art, comprised of more than 3,000 objects collected contemporaneously from the 1960s to the present day. The Hessel Museum is open and free to the public. Public sculptures by Franz West, Cosima von Bonin, and other artists surround the Museum. Please see our museum page for details.

The CCS Bard Library is one of the foremost contemporary art research collections in the United States focusing on post-1960s contemporary art, curatorial practice, exhibition histories, theory and criticism and includes over 38,000 volumes. Please see the library page for more information.

The CCS Bard Archive provides access to a wide range of primary materials documenting the history of the contemporary visual arts and the institutions and practices of exhibition-making since the 1960s. Please see our research center page for further details.

The Graduate Program in Curatorial Studies is an intensive course of study in the history of contemporary art, the institutions and practices of exhibition making, and the theory and criticism of contemporary art since the 1960s. Throughout its over thirty year history, the program has actively recruited perspectives underrepresented in contemporary art and cultivated a student body representing a diverse spectrum of backgrounds in a broad effort to transform the curatorial field. Please see our school page for further details. Generous scholarships available to applicants on a merit and financial aid basis.

CCS Bard hosts a range of public events throughout the year. All events are free and open to the public. Please see upcoming events here.

The Center for Curatorial Studies is part of Bard College and located on the their Annandale-on-Hudson campus. Bard acts at the intersection of education and civil society, extending liberal arts and sciences education to communities in which it has been underdeveloped, inaccessible, or absent. Through its undergraduate college, distinctive graduate programs, commitment to the fine and performing arts, civic and public engagement programs, and network of international dual-degree partnerships, early colleges, and prison education initiatives, Bard offers unique opportunities for students and faculty to study, experience, and realize the principle that higher-education institutions can and should operate in the public interest. For more details on Bard College, please see here.