The M.A. features courses that focus on new developments in the scholarship and theory of contemporary art and courses that emphasize research and the conception and realization of exhibitions as practices. Course highlights include the Curatorial Practicum, a multi-term laboratory of exhibition-making and theory in relation to the public sphere. Students work collaboratively to conceptualize, research and organize a culminating project. This includes mounting a public exhibition and presenting a connected publication and programming in Los Angeles. In a Master's Thesis, students develop individual, original research on a topic in contemporary art with the guidance of faculty.