Senior Research Paper: Researching and Writing About Artists and Their Work

Overview: You will be choosing one artist, either from the following list or a contemporary artist (or 20th Century artist) of equal historic merit--(he or she must have adequate primary and secondary source material from which to research). The research you gather will help you prove your thesis about specific pieces of art (1-5). Choose an artist whose work you like, and even more importantly, who you think makes an interesting statement through his or her artwork that you think you can explain for about 15 pages.

Here are two model papers from last year:

• Vik Muniz
• Wangechi Mutu

You should read these papers to understand where this process is going.

Step 1: I have set up hyperlinks for about 50 artists. Spend the next hour or so choosing an artist that you would like to focus for the next few weeks. (You will want to have a back-up choice or two for various reasons.) I know a bit about each of these artists and have an idea of what you will face if you choose to research any of them. I’ll be around to answer questions. Enjoy.
For some of these artists, it is just as easy to do an image search.

Painters and Artists:

• Francis Bacon
• Banksy
• Jean Michel Basquiat
• Romare Bearden
• Wallace Berman
• Norbert Bisky
• Joe Brainard
• Chuck Close
• Jess (Collins) (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Joseph Cornell
• Jay DeFeo
• Willem De Kooning (Image search has more variety of his work.)
• Jorge de la Vega
• Jim Dine (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Marcel Duchamp (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Max Ernst (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Shepard Fairey (At the ICA right now)
• Tony Fitzpatrick
• Lucien Freud
• Arshile Gorky (Image search has more variety of his work.)
• Philip Guston (Image search has more variety of his work.)
• Tim Hawkinson
• David Hockney
• Hans Hofmann
• Damien Hurst (Image search has more variety of his work.)
• Jasper Johns (Image search has more variety of his work.)
• Alex Katz
• Anselm Kiefer
• Edward Kienholz
• Franz Kline (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Lee Krasner (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Sol Lewitt
• Roy Lichtenstien (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Julie Mehretu
• Joan Mitchell (Easier to do an image search.)
• Robert Motherwell (Easier to do an image search.)
  
• Alice Neel
• Damian Ortega
• Raymond Pettibon
• Tom Phillips (He’s got a blog, people!)
• Jackson Pollock (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Robert Rauschenberg (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Gerhard Richter
• Larry Rivers
• James Siena
• Amy Sillman
• Sandy Skoglund
• Frank Stella (Just as easy to do an image search.) He was born in Malden!
  
• Yves Tanguy (Just as easy to do an image search.)
• Cy Twombly (Easier to do an image search.)
• Kara Walker
• Lee Waisler
• Trevor Winkfield
• Jerry Uelsmann

White Cube also has a good list of contemporary artists.

So does this PBS site.

I chose these artists because they should be easy enough to find research on but have not been written on endlessly. If you have an artist in mind, I’d be happy to add it to the list.

Step 2: Post a Comment on which artist you want and why (This should be a formal 'proposal' letter, about 200 words). You can, of course, pick someone that is not on the list. I would also like you to hyperlink the title of an image that you like from the artist, so a quick mini-lesson:

This is due at 8:00 a.m. on Wed. Feb. 4th. Artists are given on a first-post basis. There can be no repeats.

Kevin Ta 5 said...Alright, here’s my quick mini lesson on how to hyperlink in comment boxes. Say you want to make a link like this. All you have to do is type the following into the comment box:
<"a href=http://www.google.com">"this"<"/a">
and get rid of the quotation marks. When you publish it, it will look like:
this
Replace the URL (making sure you have the http:// part) and the “this” and it’s as simple as that. Remember that the Preview button is your friend. Hope that helps.

What would Charles Olson say?

Watch Mr. Colbert 'interview' Elizabeth Alexander at Colbert's website. Assignment:

• Make sure you have read all assigned material for Charles Olson and have a working understanding of his text. You should be able to draw from his poems and essays, your notes from the readings, class discussion, and Ferrini's film, as well as anything else you decided to investigate that aided your understanding of Olson's 'poetics'.
• Read and / or watch and listen Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem "Praise Song for the Day."
• Watch the video clip of Alexander on the 'Colbert Report.' Even though this is 'funny', it is up to you to sift through and find something you can write intellectually about.
  
• Respond to the following prompt: Based on your knowledge of Charles Olson's poetics, how would he respond to any of the following: any of Colbert's questions to Alexander, any of Alexander's responses to Colbert's questions, or Alexander's poem itself.

You will be graded on the MHS Open Response Rubric. Make sure you have sophisticated thesis & textual evidence to back up your assertions. 4+ = 100, 4 = 95, 3 = 85, 2 = 70, 1 = 60.

Your post must cover something that has not been covered in the comment stream before you, though elaboration is encouraged.

I would think you'd need at least 750 words to do this effectively.

This is due by 8 a.m. on Monday, Feb 2nd 2009. It will count as a 40 point 'homework' assignment. Late posts will only receive half credit, unless extension is granted beforehand.

Olson link for y'all

First off, here are some audio links for the packet of poems that you have (in case you want to hear them read by Olson):

• I, Maximus of Gloucester, To You
• The Songs of Maximus
• Maximus, To Himself

Also, this is UPENN's site that lists a bunch of Olson voice recordings.

You can also go to their main page and look up any of the writers from the movie that interest you and listen to them lecture or read poems--it's a pretty amazing resource.

A very good site by The University of New York / Buffalo for Olson source material.

Required: Finally, I would like you all to read this essay: Projective Verse before class on Thursday.

Do your best with all of this--the more questions you have, the more I can sense that you actually read it. This is not easy stuff, ladies and gents--but it is important to your existence as a human. We will use class time for SLD on Olson's poetry and prose on Wednesday & Thursday (if school is not canceled due to snow). What we don't get to in class will be your responsibility at home.

Found Poetry assignment for Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Overview:

Heart of Darkness is broken up into three sections—and so, your poem will also be. It is up to you to decide how each section of your poem will represent or connect with each section of Conrad’s novel. This can be based around theme, choosing different speakers or subjects for each section—the list could go on, but it should be carefully done.

T.S. Eliot wrote a poem called “The Hollow Men” which is constructed around Conrad’s novel. We are also going to look at his poems “The Hippopotamus” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” for stylistic and thematic models of writing. Modernism (not to be confused with Contemporary writing—which comes after post-modernism) is one of the greatest difficulties for students on the AP test.

Found Poetry Assignment for Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

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