The Films and Videos of Jamelie Hassan catalogue

Published as part of The Films and Videos of Jamelie Hassan, the first curated project to bring together and examine Hassan’s use of moving image art forms, this richly illustrated book represents an important new avenue of research into one of Canada’s most prominent artists. The catalogue examines in detail nine films and videos produced by Hassan over her career. These films and videos are discussed and contextualized within Hassan's artistic practice through a series of texts – including an introduction by Julian Jason Haladyn, two major essays by Laura U. Marks and Miriam Jordan, along with an opening statement by the artist – as well as extensive visual documentation relating these works to the installations or projects from which they are derived. The Films and Videos of Jamelie Hassan is published by PLATFORM: Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts and Art Gallery of Windsor in association with Blue Medium Press

Bakhtin and the contemporary visual arts

This paper investigates the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin as a means of critically examining the practices of contemporary visual artists. Directly building upon and critiquing Deborah J. Haynes’ 1995 study Bakhtin and the Visual Arts, Jordan and Haladyn argue for the importance of using the dialogic and carnivalesque in an examination of contemporary art, specifically works that use the body of the artist and/or the body of the spectator as key elements within the work. Artists discussed include: James Luna, Rebecca Belmore, Andrea Fraser, Jannis Kounellis, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Ron Benner

Disrupting Utopia: Hans Haacke’s Germania or Digging Up the History of the Venice Biennale

This paper examines Hans Haacke’s 1993 project Germania as a literal disruption of the utopic vision of the Venice Biennale as an international art event, specifically as it relates to the construction of national identity. As Jordan and Haladyn argue, Haacke’s project deconstructs the very foundation of the national identity of Germany that can be traced back to Hitler’s patronage and investment in the German pavilion; for Haacke the only way to undermine this elided history is to physically break up the ground of this exhibitionary space

The art of answerability: Dialogue, spectatorship and the history of art

This paper explores the contextual plurality that constitutes art history as a discipline by examining the dialogic and answerable relationship among the artist, artwork and spectator. Specifically, we examine the conceptions of the creative act by two 20th century thinkers: Mikhail Bakhtin and Marcel Duchamp

The Hollow Men: Chris Marker [exhibition review]

Chris Marker’s video installation The Hollow Men, presented on a series of eight plasma screen monitors mounted in a row, captures a haunting vision of the death and destruction of World War I, an event that functions as a prelude to the dawn of a new era

Recent advances in understanding and managing myasthenia gravis [version 1; referees: 3 approved]

Autoimmune myasthenia gravis (MG) is a neuromuscular junction disorder marked clinically by fatigable muscle weakness and serologically by the presence of autoantibodies against acetylcholine receptors (AChRs), muscle-specific kinase (MuSK), or lipoprotein-related protein 4 (LPR4). Over the past few decades, the mortality of patients with MG has seen a dramatic decline secondary to evolving interventions in critical care and medical management. In the past 2 to 3 years, there have been several changes in standard of care for the treatment of MG. These changes include confirmation of the benefit of thymectomy versus medical management alone in AChR patients and a new US Food and Drug Administration-approved medication for refractory MG. There are also several exciting new prospective drugs in the pipeline, which are in different stages of clinical trial testing