Contemporary Art

History Art
Research Paper – BANKSY

1) Pick an artist who made most of his or her art after 1980. (I chose Banksy)
2) By Feb. 23rd email me the artist you would like to research. Each artist can only be picked once. I will
email you back to let you know if the artist is available and acceptable.
3) Begin doing research on the artist and the art movement(s) he or she is associated with.
3) Make sure to collect all the websites, titles of books, and or magazine articles you read. You should
have at less four sources you are working from.
4) Write an 5-7pages paper using APA style citations. In the paper you should focus on the artwork
that your artist has made and the art movement he or she is affiliated with. You can also include
information about his or her childhood, education, or other relevant personal information.
5) Follow steps a-i.

a. The first page should be your title page. This should include a title and your full name. This should not be counted in the required 5 pages of text.

The body of the paper
b. Introduction – this should be a paragraph or two.
c. Biographical information about your artists, such as where he or she was born, went to school, and other important facts about his or her life. All of this information MUST be cited because you will be finding this information out through research and copying it from a source. This should be 1-2 pages.
d. Next, write about the art movement or movements your artist is associated with. You should explain what the movement was, such as the philosophy or ideas of the movement, when the movement started and ended, where it started, other artists that were in the movement, and how or why your artist is associated with the movement. Again, this information MUST be cited. This should be 1-2 pages.
e. Next, pick two pieces of work created by your artists.
f. Really examine the works deeply, and use one page to describe the first piece and one page to describe the second piece. This could include discussing such things as color, line, material, and the meaning of the work. To help you write this section, go back to the Getty Museum website and look at the principles of design and elements of art. This should be in your own words and should be around 2 pages.
g. Next, compare and contrast the two works you chose. While this should be in your own words, you might find reviews or information about the work you selected. You may include it in this section; however, you Must cite the sources. This should be 1-2 pages.
h. Next, write a conclusion to your paper. This should be a paragraph or two. You should now be at the bottom of page 5 or maybe onto page 7of the body of the paper.
i. On the next page you should write a bibliography. This should be counted in the 5-7 pages.
j. On the next page, after the bibliography, include images of the two works you described. These should not be counted in the 5-7 pages of text.

7) Use Blackboard as a tool to check your paper. Upload your paper to blackboard and check to see if
anything is underlined. If anything is underlined rework that part of the paper or go back and cite
that part and upload it again. Continue to do this until your paper will past the “plagiarism test.” This
means the only things that are allowed to be underlined are direct or paraphrased quotations that
are cited. However, for the length of this paper that should be no more than 5 to 10 lines of the
entire paper. You should never have entire paragraphs that are cited.
8) Upload your paper one last time to Blackboard by the paper deadline. I will take off points for
plagiarism, poor paper structure, misuse of grammar, misspelling, overall lack of information, and
papers that are less than 5 full pages. I will give good grades to students that write clear, well
organized papers, use their own ideas and interpretation of research, and focus most of the paper on
the artist’s artwork.