Assignment:
ARTISTIC SELECTIONS, ART FORMS & ARTISTS
Artistic Selections. First, you need to select three works of African American art. Once you have chosen each selection you will review, you need to identify the title of the work, the year it was created or produced, and information about the artist who created or produced it. You must be able to provide the full and complete title of the artistic selection and a full citation for it. Please consult APA style or MLA style guidelines for how to write up the proper citation. You should also provide a representative image of the selection, if possible. If you choose a form of visual art (e.g., painting, mural, sculpture, handicrafts, architecture, photography, etc.), include an image of the selection. If you choose a performance art (i.e., music, dance, film, etc.), provide an image that is representative of the art, such as an image of the poster for a movie, the album art cover for a song, a playbill for a dance performance, or a snapshot from a performance, etc. If there is no image available for your selection, please state that at the beginning of the aesthetic review. (NOTE: You are strongly encouraged to use works that have a representative image.)
Art Forms. You are free to choose from any of the art forms covered in this course. Since we review a broad array of artistic forms representing different genres and styles across the various time periods, you have plenty of options. In general, it is expected you will consider choosing from among the following visual and/or performance art forms:
Songs (singing, instrumental, rap, or spoken word performances)
Dance (performances)
Film (video art, movies, short films, etc.)
Paintings and Murals
Handicrafts (e.g., quilts, pottery, glassworks, etc.)
Photography (daguerreotypes, portraiture, digital, etc.)
Sculptures (including multimedia collages)
Architectural structures (e.g., built structures)
You may choose the art form you prefer for each time period you select. You are not limited to a single art form (e.g., painting), nor are you limited to a single style of that art form (e.g., postmodernist painting). NOTE: The art form and style must pertain to African American art. You are encouraged to frame your Aesthetic Review assignment creatively. For example, you can examine the same art form as it was produced across different time periods (e.g., photographs produced by artists in three different time periods), or you can focus on various art forms produced in different time periods (e.g., pottery in one time period, painting in a second time period, and a sculpture from a third time period). You can emphasize the same form of African American art produced in different styles during different time periods (e.g., ring shout dances, tap dances, and hip-hop dances, or spoken word performances from the 1970s, 1990s, and present-day, etc.). Which art forms you select is entirely up to you. Artists. The artists you select for your Aesthetic Review assignment must be African American. Additionally, they need to be African American artists who produced works that contributed to African American art. (Artists of African descent (e.g., Nigerian, Kenyan, Afro-Brazilian, Haitian, Jamaican, Barbadian/Bajan, etc.) who produced works in their native country and whose works are not tied to African American history, art, or culture, are not appropriate choices for the assignment.) Again, the artist or artist group you select must be African American.