If you write contemporary, photographic realism has become a fossil. If you want to write something new, you must make it up yourself ... if you take it as an archaeological object, it is of little value.
Contemporary words can consider post-colonial cultural theory or feminism, which is still quite popular, that is, there are still many things to do. Feminism is also regarded as the pioneer of post-colonialism, and this theory still has vitality in the West. Last year, a feminist exhibition was held in Paris, and the post-colonial cultural theory was certainly interesting. However, domestic academic circles are not clear about what post-colonialism is, and many people have the opposite understanding of post-colonialism. If you have patience, read Said's Orientalism and related literature by yourself. It's also good and best to do this topic. Feminism is more suitable for small-scale research, because it has many branches, some schools are relatively simple, and some are relatively easy to cut into, such as environmentalism feminism. Japanese Miyazaki Hayao animation is a typical representative of this theory. Although Japan is in the East, it also belongs to the West ideologically (see the explanation in Said's Orientalism for details). Then, studying Miyazaki Hayao's cartoons can lead to the Japanese theory of Zhaoyelin culture, which is also very interesting. In short, if you condescend to read two books, I believe you will find many interesting topics to start with. As for post-modernism, the discussion of post-modernism in our country has been completely stinky because of different views on this concept (similar to the post-colonial situation, mainly because the foreign language is not good, I am too lazy to read the original work, and it just happens that the translation is pure two knives). It is better to bury andy warhol's story (including photo realism).
If your teacher is unfortunately locked in the category of modernity, 1900- 1950, then you'd better look for clues from Cezanne Van Gogh, Picasso, Ernst, Schiller, Kandinsky and Xia Jiaer. Duchamp became famous early, but unfortunately he created postmodernism and was demoted to the present.
There is an obvious difference in modern art history, that is, the main body of modern art history is artistic texts such as paintings, while the main body of contemporary art history is gradually alienated from artistic works such as paintings, becoming pure theoretical and conceptual texts, with a sudden increase in complexity and basically going straight to sophistry. You will find that in the field of western studies, andy warhol's books are 100 times more important than his paintings. Only people like China 798 stare at his paintings and study hard.
As for comparison, it is particularly popular now. Many people have a misunderstanding. A comparison covers up all the ugliness. This is absolutely a blind practice. Without profound academic foundation and knowledge, it is best not to touch this minefield. If you are knowledgeable and know how to compare, some of them are naturally unbearable. The biggest fear is that there is no comparison, and it will be ugly to laugh. Moreover, the comparative method is not suitable for small-scale research. Although many people do this, the effect is very bad. In fact, the main difficulty lies in choosing the object. Choosing two truly comparable objects is far from being as simple as imagined. Comparative literature is also a question for universities. You don't know how to choose a comparison object until you know it thoroughly. Of course, if you are interested in comparative research, you can study it, but it may be too late to hand in your homework paper after learning it.