The Presence of Words in Visual Art from Surrealism to Conceptualism

Without a doubt, one of the biggest changes that affected XXth century art is the introduction of words into paintings and, in more recent years, in installations. For centuries, if words were part of a visual composition, they functioned as reference; strictly speaking, they were used as a guideline for a better perception of the subject represented. With the developments of the XXth century, words became a very important part of the visual composition, and sometimes embodied the composition itself. About this topic, American art critic and collector Russell Bowman wrote an interesting article called Words and images: A persistent paradox, in which he examines the American and the European art of the XXth century in almost its entirety, dividing it up in six “categories of intention”. The aforementioned categories are not based on the art history timeline, but on the role that language played for specific artists or movements. Taking inspiration from Bowman's article, this paper is structured in three chapters, respectively: words in juxtaposition and free association, words as means of exploration of language structures, and words as means for political and personal messages. The purpose of this paper is therefore to reflect on the role of language in contemporary art and on the way it has changed from artist to artist.

Adjusting mortality for loss to follow-up: analysis of five ART programmes in sub-Saharan Africa

Evaluation of antiretroviral treatment (ART) programmes in sub-Saharan Africa is difficult because many patients are lost to follow-up. Outcomes in these patients are generally unknown but studies tracing patients have shown mortality to be high. We adjusted programme-level mortality in the first year of antiretroviral treatment (ART) for excess mortality in patients lost to follow-up.

Can Developing Women Create Primitive Art? and Other Questions of Value, Meaning and Identity in the Circulation of Janakpur Art

In this article, I examine the values and meanings that adhere to objects made by Maithil women at a development project in Janakpur, Nepal – objects collectors have called ‘Janakpur Art’. I seek to explain how and why changes in pictorial content in Janakpur Art – shifts that took place over a period of five or six years in the 1990s – occurred, and what such a change might indicate about the link between Maithil women’s lives, development, and tourism. As I will demonstrate, part of the appeal for consumers of Janakpur Art has been that it is produced at a ‘women’s development project’ seeking to empower its participants. And yet, the project’s very successes threaten to displace the producers (and what they produce) from their perceived qualities/identities as ‘traditional’ and ‘primitive,’ thereby bringing into question the authenticity of the ‘art’ they produce. The conundrum begs this question: can developing women produce primitive art?

The Art of Aidagara: Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Quest for an Ontology of Social Existence in Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku

This paper provides an analysis of the key term aidagara (“betweenness”) in the philosophical ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), in response to and in light of the recent movement in Japanese Buddhist studies known as “Critical Buddhism.” The Critical Buddhist call for a turn away from “topical” or intuitionist thinking and towards (properly Buddhist) “critical” thinking, while problematic in its bipolarity, raises the important issue of the place of “reason” versus “intuition” in Japanese Buddhist ethics. In this paper, a comparison of Watsuji’s “ontological quest” with that of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Watsuji’s primary Western source and foil, is followed by an evaluation of a corresponding search for an “ontology of social existence” undertaken by Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962). Ultimately, the philosophico-religious writings of Watsuji Tetsurō allow for the “return” of aesthesis as a modality of social being that is truly dimensionalized, and thus falls prey neither to the verticality of topicalism nor the limiting objectivity of criticalism.

Stability of Art Preference in Frontotemporal Dementia

We examined aesthetic preference for reproductions of paintings among frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients, in two sessions separated by 2 weeks. The artworks were in three different styles: representational, quasirepresentational, and abstract. Stability of preference for the paintings was equivalent to that shown by a matched group of Alzheimer's disease patients and a group of healthy controls drawn from an earlier study. We expected that preference for representational art would be affected by disruptions in language processes in the FTD group. However, this was not the case and the FTD patients, despite severe language processing deficits, performed similarly across all three art styles. These data show that FTD patients maintain a sense of aesthetic appraisal despite cognitive impairment and should be amenable to therapies and enrichment activities involving art.

Rates and Predictors of Failure of First-line Antiretroviral Therapy and Switch to Second-line ART in South Africa

To measure rates and predictors of virologic failure and switch to second-line antiretroviral therapy (ART) in South Africa.