Keith Haring: from street art to success (more focus on his early artworks – street art in the subways, etc. -).
Contemporary Art in Europe & America: 1945 – 2000s
+/- 15 pages* research paper, with an additional bibliography providing 5 to 10 carefully chosen references (books, periodicals, articles from appropriate databases, etc. but only one Internet source (webpage) is allowed.
(*) A page contains an average of 3000 characters or 500 words.
Select a limited number of related artworks to discuss; frame the time period accordingly (it is necessary to limit your field of inquiry to avoid generalization and remain specific enough).
Goal:
The final research paper is expected to demonstrate basic research skills: a capacity to select relevant sources and to discuss them critically; operate a synthesis of different interpretations; formulate a point of view that goes beyond unsubstantiated personal opinions (go beyond likes and dislikes).
Sources:
Your research will confront you with a variety of publications ranging from serious, sometimes intimidating scholarship to crude journalistic vulgarisation, from heavy fact-based assessment to light opinion piece. Learning to differentiate them and sorting them out will be an essential task, and your final bibliography should reflect this effort. Your paper should include footnotes, referencing your sources.
You will inevitably check out Wikipedia. Be very careful, it is often an extremely misleading source, accumulating unreferenced facts and information around the artworks, providing unjustified diagram-based formal analysis (reducing the artwork to a combination of squares and triangles); and mixing indiscriminately different levels of interpretation (biographical explanation, socio-political context, critical reception, literary references, conjecture about influences, etc…). Ultimately, this kind of hodgepodge is only confusing and unproductive.
Conversely, you will look for serious peer-reviewed books and articles (i.e. written by experts in the field of art history whose work has been validated by other scholars). Again, librarians are here to help you in this regard.
Points to consider about your sources:
When was it written? Who is the author? Is it an in-depth essay, a concise analytical reflection, an exhibition review? Is there an obvious strong theoretical line of inquiry?
General Structure of the final paper:
1.Make sure that your paper is properly articulated: a short general introduction quickly leading to your specific inquiry, a central reflection where each paragraph deals with a specific points, a conclusion that summarizes your inquiry and opens the way to further development.
2. Take time to develop a solid visual analysis
3. Don’t be afraid to quote a source for the interpretation it provides.
4. Demonstrate that you understand this interpretation
5. Has this interpretation been corroborated or disputed by other sources?
6. Confront these conflicting interpretations; insist on the elements you find convincing in each (justify your point of view as much as you can).