ARTH -DL1 Paper Guidelines: Spring 2024 Paper (30 % of grade) Your

ARTH -DL1 Paper Guidelines: Spring 2024

Paper (30 % of grade)

Your paper will examine one Hirshhorn Museum artwork made by one artist after 1980. The 4 page, well-written, and thoughtful paper included visual analysis and some research.

1. Select an artwork made after 1980.

2. Write a 4-page paper analyzing the formal, contextual, historical and artistic context of this artist and their production. Submit Paper in Deliverable 3 on Blackboard.

Your paper should demonstrate your expertise on your artist and the specific artwork you selected. The paper include brief biographical information on the artist, and should focus on the artwork, the concept, and strategies the artist engaged in the work. Take your time to read about your artist, think about the artwork and any underlying concepts or strategies. Because this paper is almost 1/3 of your course grade, it should reflect a significant effort on your part. Please consider the following points:

-introduce your artist (Cindy Sherman b. 1954) through their birth and death dates. Note where this artist works and in what context their artistic production is usually situated (Post-Pop, institutional critique, post-conceptual, subject of history, reconsidering history etc.). Your familiarity with the artist’s approach is gained through reading critical writing on your artist and these specific artworks. Ways to access this writing:

-look at their commercial gallery website. To do this, enter the artist name “Damien Hirst” and commercial gallery in Google and their gallery should come up in the top 5 responses (Gagosian Gallery). The gallery has a page for each artist they represent, often one that includes a biography and bibliography. Click on the artist page and search the bibliography for articles that reference your artwork or one like it. You want a targeted analysis.

-Check theonline databases like Oxford Art Online and JSTOR to see if there are any articles on your artist/artworks. See Stephanie Grimm’s Powerpoints for more directions.

-Look for documentary videos – like PBS’s Art21 (online)

-Reading art historical writing and art criticism on your artist will build your expertise and allow you to develop a thesis statement or core analytic framework for assessing your artist’s work. State your thesis (it could be a particular approach to a core topic from our course) and then argue supporting claims/assessments. IMPORTANT – this is not a subjective response, but a paper built to demonstrate your learning in this course and your ability to read and apply the concepts and strategies to your artist’s work. It is also not a biographical study of your artist. The artist’s biography should be secondary to your analysis of the art object.

-You need to cite the reading/writing that informs your paper. Include footnotes and a bibliography at the end. Art History uses the Chicago Style Manual and here is a link to a short guide….. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html