Congratulations are due to the undergraduate senior class of 2025 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Many students celebrated their time at SAIC by showcasing their work in the Fall and Spring Undergraduate Exhibitions (colloquially known as the BFA Shows) facilitated by Undergraduate Studies and SAIC Exhibitions and held at SAIC Galleries at 33 E Washington St.
However, despite the fabulous work and effort from students, the fight for space and time on campus felt as though it had reached its breaking point this semester at the Spring UG Exhibition.
Students find out that they are eligible to participate in the UG Exhibitions from an email confirming they’ve reached the number of credits they need to be on track to graduate. They’re assigned to a fall or spring show, or required readings and symposiums, or select another of the wide array of programming offered. Other popular programs include the IMPACT Performance Festival, and the Film, Video, New Media, Animation, and Sound Festival. These registrations follow the add-drop deadline for classes, ensuring that Undergraduate Studies can equally disperse students across exhibitions.
From that point, the process for each artistic showcase varies drastically — but it’s worth noting that the UG Exhibitions are uniquely uncurated. While wall-to-wall non-thematic artwork isn’t unique at SAIC, exemplified by first year students’ ARTBASH, the spring UG Exhibition is exceptionally crowded. When it comes to showcasing the work of 260 artists in the Spring UG Exhibition, three floors of gallery space is barely enough.
When the work isn’t curated, and space is selected on a first-come-first-served basis by students, the work looks cluttered, creating an overwhelming experience that takes away from each artists’ individual piece. This is exacerbated further by the show staying open for only a week, competing with other senior shows by the hour. Maybe the UG Exhibitions just can’t cut it anymore.
While other shows have significantly fewer participating students — FVNMAS Festival typically showcases around 20, and the 2025 Capstone Fashion Show is compiled from nine student’s work — allowing for curation and refinement, SAIC Exhibitions is understaffed. Curation at this scale — over 100 participants in fall and over 260 in spring — is nearly impossible.
The larger issue is logistics. From April to July, SAIC hosts ARTBASH, IMPACT Performance Festival, FVNMAS Festival, multiple symposia and readings. And the SAIC Galleries must make space for the spring UG Exhibition, two grad shows, masters of art therapy with post-bac, and the low-res exhibition.
Assistant director of exhibitions and registrar Josh Fairbanks, and dean of undergraduate studies Dawn Gavin said that the schedule for these shows is discussed and mitigated with faculty across departments to strike a balance. Many shows also intentionally overlap to create a larger celebration.
“We just don’t have the staffing capacity [to] run the exhibition — I have, on average, about three graduate students who are working on this with me. And then we have a team of student workers who help out on the floor with the install. And that’s the team. Based on the time it takes us to mount the show and then to de-install the show, and then to also turn over the space — it takes a bit of time,” said Fairbanks.
But if the number of students and the amount of staff is a problem, why can’t the senior shows be more spread out? UG Exhibitions stay up for about one week, while exhibitions hosted by SAIC faculty and visiting artists can stay up for upwards of two months. Fairbanks explained that these “focused” exhibitions are planned three to four years in advance and frequently have student components.
“We see [focused exhibitions] as a different educational opportunity for students. And sometimes the faculty who are curating or proposing those shows are working with students as a student component with us as well,” said Gavin.
Undergraduate Studies and SAIC Exhibitions are not responsible for SAIC’s lack of space, and they seem to be attempting to make the most of the space and staff they have. But students do wish for a curated exhibition.
“We do work with what we call our GCAs, or graduate curatorial assistants. One of the things that they actually came up with a number of years ago is, on Instagram, they do a curatorial feature because the exhibition isn’t curated in physical space — and they write critically about the work through that avenue,” said Fairbanks.
Other exhibition-based student groups on campus such as SITE and Incubator, which accept submissions from students to host solo and group exhibitions, show that students are interested in the curation and installation of gallery shows.
The Senior Exhibitions capstone courses lend themselves to students interested in curation and gallery execution as well. All students participating in the UG Exhibition have access to a Canvas course with tutorials and how-to’s on installation. Exhibitions capstone classes focus heavily on ideation and the process of putting together a group show.
“There’re a few goals. One is to, in a broader sense, talk about exhibition making in general. Hopefully, talking through the practical skills necessary to mount an exhibition, as well as the kind of more cerebral and curatorial and conceptual aspects of mounting an exhibition.
But the more discrete goal is that we collectively organize a thematic show within the BFA show,” said Danny Floyd, assistant professor, adjunct. Floyd has taught the Senior Exhibitions capstone course 10 times.
Senior Exhibitions capstone students manage their corner of the UG Exhibitions end-to-end. Floyd models his classes around UG Exhibitions’ deadlines while allowing his students two opportunities to visit the gallery space pre-install, and making sure planning for the layout is done after in-progress critiques, so students can have a better idea of what they will be working with. He also works closely with students during installation.
“A lot of [capstone exhibitions professors] have professional backgrounds in exhibition making, whether as curators, as exhibiting artists — my hope is that having faculty in the room makes it easier for the drastically understaffed gallery team,” said Floyd.
UG Exhibitions may not be changing anytime soon, but I’d like to imagine a future where students aren’t pressed for space and time to showcase the work they may have dedicated their entire college career to. The care for the students and the artwork is present, and in having more resources, there is an incredible opportunity to create better shows.
