S

t
i
l
l

f
r
o
m

E
a
c
h

o
f

u
s

w
a
s

s
e
v
e
r
a
l

b
y

T
o
o
n

F
i
b
b
e
In Search of
Feiko Beckers / Slater Bradley / Michelle Browne
Derek Brunen / Erik Bnger / Susanne Burner
Jeremiah Day / Toon Fibbe / David Horvitz
Frederic Klein / Sjoerd van Leeuwen
Dafna Maimon / Guido van der Werve
Erik Wesselo / Marion van Wijk & Koos Dalstra
02.09 - 28.10
2 3
Thinking about this project started
a fewyears ago. Good friend and
fellow curator Danil Dennis de Wit
told me in Amsterdam, where he was
living at the time, about his I Miss
Bas Jan Ader- photo on/in which he
seems to be crying. De Wit, educated
as an artist at Academie Minerva
(Groningen) saw only afterwards,
when he took a close look at the
photo, the resemblance between his
picture and the photos and videos by
Ader in which the artist cries in front
of the camera. Both De Wit, curator
and managing director of art initia-
tive Hotel Maria Kapel in Hoorn, and
me, former art journalist with a.o. De
Volkskrant, are big fans of the works
by Ader. Ader produced, as you
might call it, accessible images, but
behind te rst impressions there are
loads of meanings hidden. Meanings
you can extract yourself. But thats
not necessary. Without knowing the
family history and the philosophers
Ader considered interesting, the
photos and videos address imagina-
tion. They are as one calls it univer-
sal. One and one is two, we thought.
We have to do something with it.
Of course we knew all kinds of
projects that were organised around
the artist. These projects dealt with
falling or gravity for instance. But all
these projects took place in a big
city, in Holland and abroad. In the
region Bas Jan Ader originates from,
theres never been realised a big
project about him until this day.
Thats strange, to say the least, we
thought. In Nieuw-Beerta and
Finsterwolde, where Ader exhibited
in 1973 as member of a group
exhibition in Gallery Waalkens
(organised by gallery Art & Project
from Amsterdam), people know the
story about Bas Jans father, Bastiaan
Jan Ader. Bastiaan Jan was a minister
in the Reformed Church in Nieuw-
Beerta during the war and helped to
shelter jews from the vicarage. In the
vicarage where the Ader family lived,
a number of jews were hiding in the
attic. Bas Jan Aders mother, Johan-
na Ader-Appels, about whom comic
strip artist Margreet de Heer drew a
comic in this publication, has written
a beautiful book about it, Een
Groninger Pastorie in de Storm (A
Groningen vicarage in the storm), in
which she describes this tempestu-
ous history. In the end her husband
was caught by the Germans and
executed.
The story of the son, Bas Jan Ader is
less known in the region. People
know he became an artist but what
did he make? Bas Jan Ader, who was
only two years of age when his
father was killed, left the region at a
young age. In his teenage years he
moved to Amsterdam to end up from
there in Los Angeles. From that
moment on, he was out of the
picture.
With this project we want to show
the art audience the region where
Bas Jan Ader has grown up. Because
we think it provides a better under-
standing of his oeuvre. At the same
time we want to bring back Bas Jan
Ader symbolically within sight of the
region by this project. Actually we
want the people of Oost-Groningen
to experience a part of their history
again, a history that partly seems to
be forgotten, also because it has
been over thirty years since Bas Jan
Ader was lost at sea. That was
another reason why we chose
locations in the province of Gronin-
gen. These locations (the Reformed
Church in Nieuw-Beerta, Gallery
Waalkens in Finsterwolde and
Academie Minerva in Groningen) all
have something to do with the life of
Bas Jan Ader. In the church in
Nieuw-Beerta (or De Horn- the
corner, as locals call the village), his
father was the vicar. In Gallery
Waalkens Bas Jan participated in one
of his last group shows in the
Netherlands. And the building in
which Academie Minerva is housed,
used to be the Groninger Museum
where Bas Jan would have had a
solo exhibition if he had arrived in
Europe in his little sailing boat in the
70s. The exhibition was cancelled
when Ader appeared to be lost.
IIn Nieuw-Beerta, fromSeptember
2nd through October 28th we show
works by artists who refer directly
to Ader and his art-historical or
family history. Like the work by
David Horvitz who produced a
Newly Found Bas Jan Ader lm. In
Groningen, the city of students, we
broaden our approach and show art
that deals with the creation of myths
and adoration. Like, for example, the
work by Slater Bradley, that shows a
little girl on the cemetery Pre-Lach-
aise in Paris kissing the grave of
Oscar Wilde. The art that can be
visited in Academie Minerva from
October 6th through October 28th is
made by artists that admire Bas Jan
Ader to some extend but isnt
literally about Ader. Moreover, in this
exhibition nowhere (or hardly) Ader is
memorised. By deviation the art tells
something about the themes Ader
was dealing with and about the way
we look at the art of Bas Jan Ader.
How we admire without knowing too
much and how myths are created. As
a viewer, you have to link that story
to the art and life of Bas Jan who
went missing at a young age and
until that moment didnt produce
that many works. Aders career was
stopped suddenly. By a self-chosen
voyage. After his boat was found
close to the coast of Ireland in 1976,
theres been no sign of life from him.
After that the myth was starting to
creating itself.
Of course the art in Academie
Minerva is to watch in itself; the art is
searching then, the characters to be
noticed in the art are searching, or
the artists making the art are search-
ing, that is In Search of..
In the entire project no works by Bas
Jan Ader are to be found. That might
seem strange but it is not. We want
to emphasise that Bas Jan Ader has
disappeared and that we miss him.
This missing becomes more intense
if we dont involve works by Ader in
the project. You can only miss some-
one because of absence, because
you arent able to see, hear, smell
and feel him/her anymore.
In September and October fellow
curator Daniel Dennis de Wit will give
some lessons within the framework
of this project to 2nd, 3rd and 4th
-grade students at art academy
Academie Minerva. These students
will get busy with the themes of
Ader. The art that the students will
make during this course, will be
shown at Galerie Waalkens in
Finsterwolde in the weekend of the
27th and 28th of October.
In a nutshell this is the history of the
project and a preview of whats
about to happen. In this paper youll
nd background information on the
project but especially on Bas Jan
Ader and his history. Journalist Britt
Stubbe wrote for instance about
Nieuw-Beerta, the little village where
she grew up too. Maria Barnas made
some notes about sentiment and our
longing for an authentic experience.
Yasmijn Jarram tells about Aders
work and life. Artist Feicko Beckers
links sentiment to current television
shows. Margreet de Heer drew the
history of Bas Jan Aders mother,
Johanna Ader-Appels. Marion van
Wijk gives a pre-publication of her
ctionalised biography about Bas
Jan Ader. Koos Dalstra tells about the
meeting he and Marion van Wijk had
with the artist James Turrell who was
a friend of Bas Jan. And Gijsbert
Kramer interviewed singer-songwrit-
er Lucky Fonz III about his fascina-
tion for Bas Jan (the interview has
been published before in De Volks-
krant).
On behalf of fellow curator Danil
Dennis de Wit, I wish you an excel-
lent reading time. If you happen to
set eyes to this publication before
youve visited the exhibitions, wed
also wish you an excellent watching
time.
Introduction
words: Lennard Dost, curator of In Search of
In the 60s, Tjark Tijdens from Nieuw-Beerta went on a trip to Canada and America.
As part of the journey, he visited Bas Jan Ader, who grew up in Nieuw-Beerta as well, and at that moment was living in Los Angeles.
As little boys, Tjark and Bas Jan did bike to Winschoten together, where they both went to school
(Bas Jan even lived with the Tijdens family for some time when he was young). Tjark only stayed at Bas Jan Aders for a day.
This photo of Bas Jan has never been published before.
P
h
o
to
:
T
ja
r
k
T
ijd
e
n
s
Like Bas Jan Ader, I, Lennard
Dost come from Winschoten,
a small town in the region
of Oost-Groningen. Because
of this common background,
I had been thinking for some
time about doing something
with Bas Jan Ader. Bas Jan
grew up in Nieuw-Beerta
where his father was a minister
and the family lived for some
time in the vicarage.
Later, after World War II, the
family moved to the neigh-
bouring town Drieborg. In
Winschoten, also in the same
area, Ader attended grammar
school (?) (a school he left pre-
maturely).
4 5
different account. The interesting thing
here is that after they started emailing
me, I did some research and found an Art
In America article that criticized them
for making contemporary fakes of
Ader. Basically, new editions stamped
with the authenticity of the estate. The
article pointed out one of these pieces
(Thoughts Unsaid Then Forgotten),
and showed how the gallery was mak-
ing the piece they were selling com-
pletely wrong. The author tracked down
Aders letters to the Nova Scotia School
of Art and Design, where the work was
exhibited, and found how the piece is
really put together. So in a sense, both
the gallery and I were making contem-
porary fakes. Theirs had the legitimacy
of the estate, was put together wrongly,
and had the sole intention of making
prot. Mine existed in Aders lore, added
to and played with his legacy, and existed
as free distributed online content. It
wasnt even just a conict of me ver-
sus the gallery, but a conict of online
distribution versus the control of singular
moving objects. Or maybe Im exagger-
ating here! At West in Den Haag I had
an exhibition where in the same room
I showed my video and I also re-made
Thoughts Unsaid Then Forgotten in
its correct manner. Its funny, what if the
gallery got upset and wanted to sue West
for showing Aders piece? Could they, if
they are actually representing a different
variation of the piece? Also in the show
as a print taken of a view of the sea in
southern England, where Ader was to
arrive in 1975. As if, we are still waiting
for him.
- David
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Len-
nard Dost wrote:
Hey David,
To me, it seems like you are also refer-
ring to our longing for new material.
Ader vanished when he was only in his
thirties. He didnt get the chance to pro-
duce that much art. In a way, it looks like
we are always hoping to discover new art
by Ader.
Like we hope to nd new material of
rockstars that died to soon (think of Amy
Winehouse, Joy Division frontman Ian
Curtis). Ader became the rockstar of
the artworld after his death I think. Did
you have this longing in mind when you
made this video?

best!
Lennard

Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:48:15 -0700
Subject: Re: question about the in search
of project
Hi Lennard,
I didnt think of this, but I like it. But I
like it in terms of the bootleg, not the
new release of unreleased songs. The
bootleg comes out of a culture of fans,
of people who identify with the band or
the artist, of people who want to share
with others from the same community.
It comes out of a kind of love. It comes
from below, where the new release...
comes from above. It is a way of market-
ing and proting.
- D
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 4:42 AM, Len-
nard Dost wrote:
hey David,
Can we consider your Newly Found
Bas Jan Ader Movie as a bootleg too?
best!
Lennard

Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2012 08:16:19 -0700
Subject: Re: question about the in search
of project
Hi Lennard,
Yeah, I like to think of it existing as a
bootleg. If you look at how the video
was made, its a super 8 projection on a
wall and shot with an amateur digital
camera. So it does have that bootleg
quality...
Its interesting, there is this idea of
banality when one thinks of conceptual
art. And Aders work is nice, he inserts
a poetics into his work, and it was still
part of the work being made in that
time - and not counter to it. He wasnt a
singular oddity, he was relevant. It was
conceptual art, but it had present a hu-
man subjectivity, which it dealt with as
subject matter.
But when you think about it, concep-
tual art isnt all boring (there is nothing
wrong with boring!). John Baldessari
waving at boats, or Douglas Hueber
photographing in the direction he hears
birds, etc... There were poetics.........
- D
On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 4:05 AM, Len-
nard Dost wrote:
Hi David,
Now you mention Baldessari; I saw some
great videos of his in the Van Abbemuse-
um (Eindhoven), when I went there with
Daniel Dennis some weeks ago. The
exhibition contained 23 of his early vid-
eos. Like the one in which he is learning
the alphabet to a plant (teaching a plant
the alphabet , 1972). And the video
where he is writing down the sentence
I will not make any more boring art,
again and again, like it was a punishment
at primary school. Fantastic work. A bit
ironic too. Do you think theres irony in
Aders work, and what about your own
work?
best,
Lennard
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:49:07 -0700
Subject: Re: question about the in search
of project
Hi Lennard,
I dont use irony in my work. Ive always
been somewhat against irony, because
I feel its a refusal to make an actual com-
mitment and stand behind something.
That its somewhat cowardly.
I would say that there is irony in Aders
work. Though, I wouldnt say it was
cowardly! Ha! I think it was in the Jan
Verwoert text by Afterall that talks about
Aders play with genre representation.
Like the Im Too Sad To Tell You,
which was making visual references to
slapstick comedy. Or using the Coasters
hit Searching, a cheesy pop hit dealing
with the same thematics of Ader.
Was he really just sad?
Was he being funny by pretending to be
sad?
Was he trying to nd smart ways to
evoke Romantic themes in Conceptual
Art?
Maybe he was sad on the inside, but
needed a smart way to show it!
- D
On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 12:21 AM, Len-
nard Dost wrote:
hey David,
To get back at those social media; I
noticed that there are a lot of people
posting videos on Youtube that refer
to Ader biking into the water, and his
crying in front of the camera. Those are
the two artworks that most people, even
artists, relate to apparently.
What do you think; do social media in
the end make us forget about the other
works Ader created, like the photoseries
Untitled (ower work), in which he
sorted owers by the colors red, yellow
and blue (a reference to his hero Piet
Mondriaan)? In a way, those two art-
works became Aders hit-singles. And
most people only remember a muscians
or artists hitsingles, especially in these
days, when there are so many hit-sin-
gles accessible via Social media..
best
Lennard
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2012 18:55:49 -0700
Subject: Re: question about the in search
of project
Hi Lennard,
Its a complicated matter here. This is a
problem I have with works on the inter-
net. You judge a work by its popularity,
by how many hits it has, how many links
link to it, how many people blog and
re-blog and tweet and re-tweet... That
is how value and success is dened here.
You make a post, and you want a million
people to see it and re-post it. You are
looking for popularity and you want it
immediately.
So when you see how Aders other works
arent getting circulation because they
arent the hits, thats not necessarily a
bad thing. We just have to change the
way we are thinking about things. Not
everything needs to be popular. And
we dont have to focus only on what is
popular. Instead, we should counter this
way of thinking about culture and at-
titudes about cultural production. Maybe
the ower piece isnt getting circulation
because it requires more thought. More
contemplation. You cant compress it so
easily. Compression is what makes infor-
mation efcient and able to circulate...
But what is lost in compression? What if
you compress an artist? An idea?
- David
On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Len-
nard Dost wrote:
hey David,
Agreed. To conclude; Im curious; you
made this Newly Found Bas Jan Ader
lm with the internet in mind. How
important is the context in which you
present the work? As you know, our
project takes place in an art academy and
in a church among other. Wed like to
show the video as part of the program,
but is this the right context for your
video? Or will we be missing part of the
story when we watch your lm at loca-
tions like these?
best!
Lennard
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:38:31 -0700
Subject: Re: question about the in search
of project
Hi Lennard,
I dont think youd be missing the story,
as long as you view it as part of a larger
process... As long as you watch the video
and understand it as coming out of a
context. That is what is nice about look-
ing at it in the position of an art context.
It is on view, and you have these options
of looking at whats on view through
different lenses... You read the press
release, you do some research about the
artist... You look at it for a few minutes
and think about it... It is in a kind of
removed space.
You could even just watch it and see a
man riding a bike into the ocean. And
thatd be kind of nice too, wouldnt it?!
- D
On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 2:27 PM,
Lennard Dost wrote:
Hey David,
When we started to think about this
project, I thought it would be interesting
to make the connection between Bas Jan
Ader and social media. Ader is shar-
ing semi-personal things, saying please
dont leave me, and crying in front of the
camera. Hes sort of spitting everything
out. Like youngsters do at this moment,
on Youtube and Facebook. I thought, as
you have put your Newly Found Bas Jan
Ader Film online on Youtube, you might
associate Ader with social media too. If
so, maybe we can have a conversation
about it for the newspaper? Let me know
what you think.
best!
Lennard
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:50:12 -0700
Subject: Re: question about the in search
of project
Hi Lennard,
Im very interested in having this conver-
sation!
I kind of have complicated feelings. I feel
that most conceptual artists from those
days would be online, if not all of them.
And I do feel the connection between
Ader and people expressing all. But I
feel Im not sure if I would 100% make
the connection... Obviously its very
similar. But there is denitely a context
of art-making in which Ader is working
in, thinking about art and the 70s and
photography/lm. Where this blog cul-
ture of exhibitionism, I would argue isnt
necessarily about making art. It seems
to be about exposing oneself .Where
Ader might be about exposing oneself...
in art....
It could be a fun talk!
- D
On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 12:13 PM,
Lennard Dost wrote:
hey David,
I know that context is everything, like
conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp, who,
I believe, had a show in LA when Ader
just arrived there (artist Marion van Wijk
told me last week, when Daniel Dennis
and I visited her in Amsterdam), already
realized. But still there are some similari-
ties I think.
You made a Newly Discovered Bas Jan
Ader lm.
It said It is believed this work was
disregarded by the artist because the lm
runs out just as he enters the ocean. The
lm was supposed to be found in Aders
locker at UC Irvine in 1975, where Ader
was teaching. You uploaded the lm on
Youtube. After a complaint of a third
party, Youtube decided to remove the
video, saying this material is infringing.
Could you tell something about this
piece?
best!
Lennard
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 18:46:08 -0700
Subject: Re: question about the in search
of project
Hi Lennard,
Oh, that is interesting about Duchamp!
That must have been the retrospective
in Pasadena in 1963. Thats back when
going to a place had an impact. Unlike
today, where you can just nd informa-
tion online about things happening in
other places, Duchamp going to Califor-
nia was major for the artists living there
at that time.
Besides Youtube, I was also writing on
Bas Jan Aders Wikipedia page, about
this supposed newly discovered work.
So I was playing on both Youtube and
Wikipedia, both social media sites of
the 2.0 landscape. The funny thing is
that I attempted to do this anonymously.
But I didnt do too good of a job, and so
people know it was me. Which is why I
am talking about it now with you. If this
was before people knew I had done it, I
would never be doing this interview. I
would just watch it from the background
seeing what happens.
I put it on Youtube and wrote on Wiki-
pedia because that is where people today
search for information. It was also very
much about playing inside this romantic
lore that was generated by his disappear-
ance. The attempt was to use sites like
Youtube to add content to this lore. Like
a folktale that has different versions.
Its funny that we are talking about this
now. I went to Documenta last week
and Mario Garcia Torres had a piece in
it where he went in search of Alighiero
Boettis hotel that had been in Kabul,
Afghanistan in the 70s. Torres work
references that generation of artists in the
60s and 70s. He actually emailed me
some years ago regarding the Ader video
on Youtube. I knew of his work, and I
knew why he was emailing me. He prob-
ably wanted to make it into a piece of his
(he was assuming it was a real video). I
respected him and I didnt want to lie to
him and say it was a real video, but I also
didnt want to admit it was a fake. So I
attempted to ignore his emails, or give
him short vague replies. Finally, after
others knew I made it, and he sent more
emails, I felt I had to admit that it was my
video. A few days ago at about 4am I was
leaving a bar in Kassel with one of my
friends. I noticed he was standing in line
to get in. I was a little drunk and I went
up to him and said, I was the one who
you were emailing with about the Bas Jan
Ader lm, sorry, I didnt want to lie to
you, but I had to!
I made the video a long time ago, and
I just uploaded it to my own Youtube
account. And people traced that account
to me. When I uploaded it I wrote the
story and thought that was enough. But
people started emailing me asking how
I got this video and if it was real or fake.
I should have uploaded it to a different
account. Its actually hosted to a differ-
ent account right now because mine was
deleted due to a third party complaint,
which was Patrick Painter Gallery,
who represents Aders estate. We had a
hilarious exchange of emails (hilarious
from my perspective!). They demanded
I remove it, and I refused. When it was
deleted, I re-uploaded it immediately to a
Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard
Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard / Hey David / Hi Lennard
6 7
In an episode of the Dutch TV-program
Ton, presenter Ton van Royen introduces
us to the married couple Jan and Anita.
They separated a while ago when Anita
found out about her husbands indelity.
Desperate as he is, Jan has asked Ton to
help him win his wife back.
But when Ton and Jan show up at her
front door, Anita seems everything but
ready to forgive him. Instead she is still
furious with Jan. While she wags her
nger at him, she reminds him of all the
things he has done wrong in the past.
When she is however nished with her
tantrum and after Jan promises to become
a better person, she reluctantly agrees to
give him a second chance. After that Jan
takes her to the parking lot next to their
house, where as a surprise for Anita, a
Peruvian pan ute band is playing.
As Anita hears the music and sees the
musicians dressed up in their ponchos
and feathered headdresses, she sud-
denly breaks down and starts crying. She
embraces Jan and with a trembling voice
even tells him that she forgives him com-
pletely and wishes for them to be together
forever.
Love manifests itself in a lot of different
ways. I know a couple for example who
give each other coconuts to show their
affection for each other. Over the years
I managed to learn the exact meaning of
these coconuts, but at rst I didnt know
what to think of it. Just as I didnt know
what to think when I saw Anita break
down after hearing that pan ute music.
Lovers often have their own language.
With certain words and pet names that
are incomprehensible for an outsider and
sometimes not even recognizable as pet
names. A language in which a coconut
can mean affection. And in which a Peru-
vian pan ute band can apparently mean:
I love you. Or to be more precise:
Can I move back into the house?
I have to admit to you, I am not really
fond of these self-constructed languages.
As an outsider you are not only unable to
understand them, above all your are not
even supposed to ever understand them.
I once spent a whole evening with
people in a bar who only spoke Spanish
with each other, leaving me unable to
follow their conversation. At the time I
was not very fond of that. But I accepted
it realizing that if I had made the effort, I
could have learned how to speak Spanish.
With the language of lovers however that
is not a possibility.
The worst is still when one of your best
friends gets a girlfriend with whom he
creates such a new language. Whereas at
rst you were able to share everything
with this person, now you are suddenly
not able to understand him at all.
But in the end I always manage to
overcome my frustrations. It all serves a
higher purpose: Love. And if even Jan
can win his wife back with it, why not?
It becomes more difcult however when
other people are in fact supposed to un-
derstand a lovers language. For example
when a good friend of my sister and her
ancee were to appear in the Dutch
TV-program All You Need is Love. This
ancee was supposed to be abroad for a
year, but All You Need is Love arranged
for him to secretly come back after six
months. Although they were happy and
surprised to see each other again it was
not a dramatic event. Instead they just
hugged each other. And that was it. They
didnt even cry.
A few weeks later my sisters friend
received a letter from the producers of
the show. They told her that they had de-
cided not to broadcast the reunion since
they deemed it not dramatic enough.
And I can understand that. The
language of love of this engaged couple
may perhaps consist of a complete lack
of emotions, for a TV-show as All You
Need is Love that is of course insufcient.
But it becomes even more difcult when
you devise a language that is also incom-
prehensible for your object of love. Espe-
cially when dealing with grand emotions,
things can get quite problematic. Believe
me. I know.
Because once I tried a new way of
telling my girlfriend that I loved her very
much. You dont want to say the same
things all the time. Variation is usually
a good thing. Variation in your diet for
example. So I reckoned, why wouldnt it
apply for the way we tell others that we
love them?
So one evening, just before going to
sleep, I looked her in the eyes and told
her: I believe in monogamy.
Damn right you do! she yelled back
at me.
The
Language
of Love
words: Feiko Beckers / image: Bart Nijstad
Bastiaan Johan Christiaan Ader grows up in Nieuw-
Beerta, Groningen as one of two vicars sons. His parents
are active in the resistance during World War II and
provide shelter to Jews. As a consequence Ader senior is
executed in 1944 by the Germans in the woods close to
Rhenen. At a young age Bas Jan Ader leaves his parental
house to study at the Kunstnijverheidsschool (arts craft
school) in Amsterdam, at present the Gerrit Rietveld
Academy where he gets to know fellow-students Wim
T. Schippers and Ger van Elk. After a year he is expelled
from the academy. After roving about he arrives in 1965
with Ger van Elk in Los Angeles, where he meets his
wife and spends the last ten years of his life.
Actually Bas Jan Ader is both an artist and a researcher:
he executes physical experiments in which endurance
and gravity are at the centre. These capers he records
soberly on photo and lm in black and white. Ader
occupies himself mainly with arranged spills, in which
he distinguishes organic (swaying) fall and geometric
(straight) fall. Mostly its Ader himself who falls: from a
branch of a tree over a ditch, from the roof of a house,
or with a bicycle and all into a canal in Amsterdam. In
other works he balances blocks of concrete over vulner-
able objects like bulbs, eggs and a birthday-cake until
he cant lift the weight anymore and the blocks tumble.
Every lm stops immediately after that moment of giv-
ing in: the fall is the end.
That fall in Aders oeuvre symbolises human transitori-
ness but also literally plays with the life of the artist: the
stunts are not really professionally performed. At rst it
provokes a laugh if the artist rolls. It brings associations
with slapstick into thought (completely in line with
the anecdote that Ader attended his own wedding on
crutches: he was fallen in love with his wife). Intrigu-
ing is the close to horrifying seriousness and resignation
Ader fulls his drills with. Time and again he, fully
convicted, puts up a struggle with physical forces, know-
ing he will never overcome those. In making this defeat
simply the purpose, Ader changes himself into a winner:
again and again he succeeds in failing.
In a way Bas Jan Ader deals with the family history dur-
ing the war, in some of his works, like a photo diptych
that pictures the artist in a forest. On one photo hes
standing upright between the trees, on the second hes
lying stretched among cut trees on the ground as if
he is staging his fathers execution. The photo All my
clothes (1970) shows Aders wardrobe spread on the roof
of a house: a reference to his mother who, scrutinised by
the Germans had to pack her stuff in an instance, threw
as much clothes outside as possible. Aders most personal
(and best known) work is probably I am too sad to tell
you (1970). In this black-and-white video-lm a crying
Bas Jan Ader is to be seen, looking not even a split-sec-
ond into the camera. Though he shares his actual mood
with the viewer: the reason of his sadness is not revealed.
This blurring of the borders between art and life is
characteristic for (American) conceptual art in the Six-
ties and Seventies of the Twentieth century in which
Bas Jan Ader dwells. The daring way Ader puts his own
body at stake for his work, resembles the way of working
of Bruce Naumann and others. Naumann also records
himself on photo and lm during physical exercises, for
instance in his studio where he continuously falls in the
same corner or walks the sides of a drawn square. Besides
this, artists like Richard Long, Robert Barry and Joseph
Kosuth as Ader did look into the difference between an
object of art and the documentation of an action: can a
written description or a video-registration of an event
be considered to be a piece of art by itself ? Above that,
own works are constantly re-used or adapted for new
purposes. In this way Ader works up the video I am too
sad to tell you into picture postcards.
In many ways Bas Jan Ader ts in the artistic spirit of his
time. Still he differs from his contemporaries because
of the sentimental, melancholic nature of his work.
Man versus nature is a romantic theme pre-eminently:
according to the by Ader admired painter Caspar David
Friedrich (1774-1840) the sublime hides in the im-
mense beauty of nature. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgen-
stein (1889-1951) who was studied by Ader compre-
hensively, writes about striving for something higher
which he nominated the miraculous. It would reveal
itself mainly in the human urge for the impossible. To
comprehend the world in all its greatness, one has to
experience the limits of the world a bit like astronauts
returned from space who claim that their lives are not
the same anymore after seeing the world as a whole.
Similar mystic thoughts had a huge inuence on Aders
art practice. In 1975 they served as the starting point
for Bas Jan Aders last work: the triptych In search of
the miraculous. In part one gallery Claire Copley in
Los Angeles shows Aders photo-series In search of the
miraculous (One night in Los Angeles) from 1973.
Next the spectacular voyage is planned and the closing
is an exhibition about this expedition in the Gronin-
gen Museum. Ader starts his fatal sailing voyage across
the Atlantic Ocean from the harbour of Cape Cod. Of
course the execution of this experiment isnt without
risk too: as an experienced yachtsman Ader chooses a
very modest little boat to repress the wild sea. Again he
loses to nature. In the end its not the sailing-journey but
Aders death that completes the work of art. As ultimate
form of failure its a sinister crown on and (also because
of that), in the meantime, a mythical oeuvre. To die
searching, Bas Jan Ader reaches a state of immortality.
So he beats the laws of nature after all.
And that was it.
They didnt even cry.
To die searching,
Bas Jan Ader reaches
a state of immortality
On
and
failing
words: Yasmijn Jarram
Few artists are surrounded by more mystery
like Bas Jan Ader is. In 1975 he tries to cross the
Atlantic Ocean in a small boat. A little year later
Spanish shermen nd the boat close to the
Irish coast but the body of Ader, at the time
33 years of age, will never be found.
falling
8 9
words & image: Dalstar
image: Enkeling
Turrell
Lilly van Ginneken from The Hague
sent us an invitation to travel to
Zurich to see the exhibition of James
Turrell and talk to the artist. We
wanted to have a denite answer
on the most probable sailing course
Bas Jan Ader followed from Cape
Cod. During the last years we had
researched all possible alternative
routes. Had Ocean Wave been last
spotted sailing near the Azores as An-
drew Meincke suggested in our Cape
Cod interview from 2003? Which
would explain why Loek Grootjans
had found soap from Santander and
olives from Bilbao on the Ocean
Wave inventory list in the naval ar-
chives of La Coruna, Spain in 2002.
Was this a true story? Shouldnt we
instead depart from our Zero-hypothesis:
The solo Atlantic crossing of Robert
Manry with Tinkerbelle in 1965, who
sailed from Falmouth (USA) to Fal-
mouth (UK) in 78 days? The Straight
line navigation according to the so called
grand circle? Then why hadnt Bas Jan
departed from Falmouth Massachu-
setts like Manry, but instead from Stage
Harbor at Chatham? Furthermore, which
was the role the harbor of Halifax was to
play in this story? Halifax in Massachu-
setts or Halifax in Nova Scotia? Bas Jan
had a work executed in Halifax in 1973
by a curator called Charlotte at the Nova
Scotia College of Art and Design: Things
Unsaid, Then Forgotten. During the
opening of his exposition (Please dont
leave me) at the Museum Boijmans van
Beuningen in Rotterdam in September
2006, this work had caused quite a scan-
dal due to an article by Wade Saunders
in an art magazine, in which the com-
mercial exploitation of Aders work was
severely criticized.
Upon arrival in Zurich on the morning
of November 16th 2011 at hotel Roth-
aus, Marion had read aloud a number
of printed Google pages with linked
websites about James Turrell, projects
and expositions all over the world, like
the big retrospective coming up and his
contribution to the Venice Biennial 2011
in the Arsenale. In 1960 Bas Jan Ader ar-
rived at Bethesda Highschool, Washing-
ton D.D. Maryland. Two years later Ader
comes to Los Angeles and meets Turrell
at Claremont College. Their friendship
lasted for twelve years. They kept run-
ning into each other on the campus of the
various universities where they studied
(Claremont, Pomona and Irvine). Both
believed in sublime art. Light and space.
At 17:00 hours that day we walked into
the Hausler Gallery at Stampfenbach-
strasse 59, directly on the Limmat River
that ows to Lake Zurich through the old
town. The gallery is situated on a busy
road to Winterthur and Schaff hausen,
parrallel to Limat Quai, straight across
from Hauptbahnhof.
From Pedro de Llano, our research fellow
at the university of Santiago de Com-
postella in Galicia, Spain, where we had
given our workshop on Bas Jans last
triptych (In Search of the Miraculous)
in June 2010, we learned that Turrell
and Ader had met each other through
a common girlfriend called Marilyn or
Carolyn White, who had visited Bethesda
Highschool in 1960. Turrell had got to
know this lady only a few years later in
Pasadena, L.A., where he was born.
I made a picture of Turrell, after he had
entered the gallery at 6 pm. By then we
had already spoken to the gallerys direc-
tor Herr Hausler, who also ran a branch
in Munich. Mister Wolfgang was an
amiable man. He told us we could always
contact the artist by e-mail through the
gallery.
We looked at the sculptures, models of
subterranean systems of corridors in Ro-
den Crater, a dead volcano near Flagstaff
Arizona, on receding wooden socles,
specially made for selling to the rich
Swiss upper class, who wanted to install
these Geodetic objects in their villas on
the mountain slopes overlooking the
Zurich valley. On the white gallery walls
hung large carbon prints of Roden Crater
in Birds eye view with drawn cosmic
sightlines, points of observation for con-
stellations of stars, spheric projections and
tunnels dug out in the craters eye. Due
to the color effects these photographs of
the enormous crater radiated an unmis-
takable erotic impression, that somehow
reminded one of a attened vagina but
also of the Egyptian pyramids and other
astronomical locations from the dawn of
mankind.
I saw a rst leather jacket in the crowd
and caught the words Amsterdam Cen-
tral. The guy asked me why we were
here. Because of research on Bas Jan
Ader, I said. The name sounded famil-
iar. Ader was in another show at Rapper-
swil on the Zurich Lake just half an hour
away on the train.
Just before Turrell entered, I had picked
up a dvd from the oor, that had fallen
from a catalogue on Roden Crater. I let
the dvd slip into a pocket. Proof that we
had really been in Zurich.
From that point on it seemed rather logi-
cal to me that Ader and Turrell shared a
passion for mountains, be it the swiss alps
or some offshoot from the rocky moun-
tains around LA.
At a certain point in time Marion had
strategically positioned herself in the
neighborhood of Turrell, she was obvi-
ously waiting till the artist was done with
all previous guests. Meanwhile I watched
the two guys in black leather jackets who
were sitting on a heating radiator in the
back of the gallery skipping through a
catalogue of Roden Crater and looking
for a dvd that was missing.
Our time with Turrell was to be short.
Five minutes at the most. The artist,
already worn down by the jovial previous
commercial approach of two customers
he had consigned to his Hausler dealer,
looked a bit confused. But when Marion
mentioned the name Bas Jan Ader, he
seemed to regain himself and his eyes
looked clear.
Turrell didnt seem a bit surprised when
I introduced myself by a brief hand-
shake and entered the conversation. So I
asked him from man to man which track
had been discussed in his last conversa-
tion with Bas Jan Ader, just before his
departure from L.A. to Cape Cod, at the
end of June 1975. Turrell looked at me
with his great blue piercing eyes. The
Grand Circle, straight to Europe, he
said. Thank you, I replied. Any other
questions?, Turrell asked. But I knew
enough. Lets not talk about the girls,
I answered and on the maestros face
appeared a gay smile. The lady Marilyn
or Carolyn White from Maryland on
the Peninsula of Delaware was still alive,
either in Pasadena or Halifax. But for all
practical purposes it was clear that the
Zero-hypothesis could not be rejected,
contrary to our ndings thus far. Bas
Jan Ader had sailed the shortest line to
Ireland, according to Manrys Tinker-
belle Grand Circle, but followed the track
of English Rose III by John Ridgeway
and Chay Blyth, that rowed The Atlantic
from Chatham to landfall on Aran Islands
in 92 days. No Horta on the Azores,
whatsoever. That was the point.

Lets not talk
about the
girls,
I answered
and on the
maestros
face appeared
a gay smile.

10 11
Let Go / Bas
Jan Ader
words & images: Marion van Wijk
Love-Inn, 1967
Page 47

Drieborg (Netherlands)
June 1967
After seven years of absence, little has changed at his home ground,
Bas Jan ascertains. His mother too, mrs. Ader, still is the same attentive
but dominant woman. The servant receives instructions to make tea
and Bas Jan and his American wife are sent to the room in the front of
the house.
At a dining table lled with papers, Bas Jan tells about his graduation
exhibition in Los Angeles.
Its an installation. A spatial painting. Save paintings, drawings with
text are hanging there too. They deal with my youth in Groningen.
About differences. Rain and bicycling in the Netherlands are opposite
to desert and driving cars in Los Angels. You understand? Its about an
explosion of ideas but the title is Implosion. Thats opposite again.
Mrs. Ader, his mother, understands little of art. Yet she is proud of her
son. He didnt fail but got his MFA degree. An American diploma.
On her turn she tells the good news about his father, reverend Ader.
Domie* will be posthumously decorated in Yad Vashem.
Yad Vashem? daughter-in-law Mary Sue repeats.
The commemoration monument in Israel for people who did impor-
tant work for the Jews in the Second World War, mrs. Ader explains.
Wow. Fantastic.
Mary Sue notices her mother-in-law staring out of the window doing the
dishes. As she wipes them dry she recognises the rests of the Dutch mid-
day dinner in the dishes. Vegetable soup, potatoes and green beans with
stewed meat. And rice-pudding with sugar and cinnamon for dessert.
And why she has so many bottles of water? she asks Bas Jan, who is
in front of the window in the living-room staring at the horizon like
his mother.
A habit from the war, I guess.
And why dont you people communicate with each other, instead of
staring through the window?
That is an essential part of the lifestyle in Groningen, Bas Jan reacts
unaffected.
After the stress in Los Angeles he enjoys three days of tranquillity in the
Groningen countryside. But soon Bas Jan becomes restless because he
wants to show his American wife the Netherlands. Unfortunately they
dont have a car.
Although shes being one with her car in Los Angeles, Mary Sue doesnt
complain waiting at the bus-stop next morning. The American smiles
at the villagers who greet and she ceaselessly murmurs:
I love the countryside.
Once on the bus Bas Jan points out the grand mansions of the farmers
and the cottages of the land-workers. Mary Sue pays special attention to
the cows and the horses. She misses her dog Tyger Tyfoon.
In Groningen, the capital of the province, they are going to look for a
sculpture by Ger van Elk that is exhibited in the park Sterrenbos. On
their way they meet cousin Bas Ader by coincidence. After he intro-
duced himself to Mary Sue they come to talk quickly about the artistic
career in America. Hows life?
Great. This year I got my MFA.
Pardon?
Master of ne arts, Bas Jan explains.
Cousin Bas on his turn tells his brother and he are sailors on the
foreign-trade. Their mother isnt happy with that.
Shes afraid we might not return from the sea.
Mothers, Bas Jan says understanding. Then it starts raining. A good
excuse to walk on and avoid difcult matters.
The loud splashing rains of those Netherlands, Mary Sue cites from
What Makes Me So Pure, Almost Holy? And More, a comic by Bas
Jan about his youth in Groningen.
Shit, Bas Jan swears inarticulately and pulls Mary Sue into Swing-
master where they take shelter. In the record-store his mood gets better
and he tells his wife:
As a teenager I could sit here for hours together with my friend Leo
listening to the latest jazz-records.
Mary Sue installs herself on one of the stools. Like a connoisseur he
moves his ngers in less than no time through the boxes with records.
He holds when he sees Miles & Monk at New Port. The rain outside
provides the right atmosphere for the rugged piano music by Theloni-
ous Monk being in contrast with the typical sound of Miles Davis.
The afternoon ends in the park in front of one of the polyurethane
sculptures by Van Elk. He is not present. He is working on a land-art
project at the gallery farmer Waalkens in Finsterwolde, he told Bas Jan
on the phone the next day.
With brother Erik behind the wheel they drive in mrs. Aders little
Volkswagen to nearby Finsterwolde. On the farm they are welcomed
by Albert Waalkens. The gallery farmer recognises the brothers as the
sons of reverend Ader. Equal length and same hair colour. But particu-
larly the charisma.
Good man your father, the gallery farmer states.
The farmers wife takes care of Mary Sue and invites her to the cow
stable.
Real Dutch cows, Mary Sue sighs as she strokes the black and white
skin of one of the cows.
Holsteiners, the farmers wife says. Imported from America. After
checking the sheep, chickens and pigs they join the men again.
Waalkens points at three labouring gures on the mown corneld.
They work on the plough-project. Land-art, Waalkens explains.
Bas Jan recognises the driver of the tractor because of his round head
and blond hair. Its Jan Dibbets ploughing the clay. In the tracks that
appear Ger van Elk walks with a big, heavy can.
Polyurethane? Bas Jan asks Waalkens.
Yes. Ger pours it in the tracks and Reinier Lucassen will paint it.
Bas Jan sees the way Lucassen sticks his brush in a bucket with red
paint. Its like a sign for the two others to walk up to the farm.
Celebrating the Groningen group of artists De Ploeg?** Thats the
way Bas Jan greets his friend. Van Elk wears black glasses with a heavy
frame. Wipes away locks of hair from his face and grins:
Yes, you remember. These expressionistic impressionists wanted to cul-
tivate art with a plough. Now its our turn. You still remember Dibbets?
Dibbets greets all by raising a hand. Hes back from London where he
studied at the St. Martins School of Art. Los Angeles, Amsterdam and
London are compared. According to Bas Jan New York is the place to be.
Fragments
from the
chapter:
Holland-
America
Page 52
Los Angeles
September 1967
Back in the States Bas Jan decides to study philosophy at Claremont-
college. For his Master he already examined Hegelian dialectics the
theory of contradictions. Because he wants to climb the philosophical
ladder he registers for a study group Wittgenstein. For weeks he doesnt
read anything else but the propositions from the Tractatus Logico-Phil-
osophicus by the British-Austrian philosopher. The propositions deal
with language and logic.
Bas Jan is somewhat relieved when he meets people in the lecture
room, who suffer the same struggle. This is however not spoken out
loud because the other cant understand your pain as every Wittgen-
stein-insider knows. Thats why students work off by outscoring with
propositions.
Dont try to tell what is provable, a guy with unsightly glasses cries.
They are the mystical, is the contribution of the only girl in the
lecture room.
Theres booing when a hippie with long hair tries to silence the others
with the most cited quote:
Hey man, Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent, you know.
Though loving one-liners Bas Jan stares at the rose-garden of the col-
lege. And thinks about the meaning of the word fall in the sentence:
Die Welt ist alles was der Fall ist. That sounds at least better then the
English translation: The world is everything that is the case.
The lecture fee is high and has to be paid by Mary Sue. She loves to
support her husband because Bas Jan doesnt have to leave the country
when he is registered.
Sometimes they visit a hip Love-Inn but feel too old to participate
actively in free sex. They rather sail with Neil Tuckers Birkhead out on
the Pacic Ocean. Or stroll on Monday nights on La Cienga Boulevard
along the 30 galleries. Young artists meet each other on this Art-Walk;
discussing art, irting with the opposite sex, secretly smoking pot and
drinking Chablis. It is the beginning of the local art-scene.
Yet the editorship of the by then famous art-magazine Artforum called
it a day. They change West-Coast for East-Coast. Because New York is
and will stay the hottest town for art.
The last edition made in Los Angeles, is American Sculpture. Con-
tributions are delivered by land artists Robert Morris and Robert
Smithson.
Sol LeWitt writes in the spirit of Wittgenstein Paragraphs on Concep-
tual Art. Its a list of rules for the conceptual artist.
Saturday evening Mary Sue and Bas Jan are visited by William Leavitt
and his wife. After serving a whisky, the rst topic is the last edition of
Artforum.
They agree that the propositions about conceptual art are of main im-
portance for the contemporary artist.
Bas Jan nds the sentence Since no form is intrinsically superior to another,
the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to
physical reality, equally. the most important.
He tells about the discussion with the artists in Finsterwolde. Land-art
or performance. Yes or no imagery. Yes or no documentation. Film or
photo. Opinions differ, Bas Jan explains to his American friends.
But we all agreed that the idea must be original. Reacting to this
Leavitt reads out loud the sentence:
Graduation, Claremontcollege, 1967
* Domie is said in Groningen dialect and an abbreviation
for Dominee which means Reverend
** Ploeg is the Dutch word for plough
Van Elk is more interested in Italy. Led
by the art critic Germano Celant a new
movement arises. Arte Povera or Poor
Art.
Dibbets knows more about the London
art scene. He mentions the duo Gilbert &
George and land artist Richard Long.
His art consist of making walks in
nature. The stones he nds on his way, he
exhibits in galleries and museums.
Good idea, Bas Jan says.
Its not only about the idea but also
about representing the idea, Dibbets
responds.
Yucky. No illustration!!, Van Elk
objects.
Dont misunderstand me. I want to
philosophize about visual arts in images
and not with words. Look at the plough-
ing tracks. The view of the spectator is
determined by the lines to the horizon.
The persons present follow Dibbetss
stretched arm and experience the effect of
perspective. Only Bas Jan doesnt feel any
relief. In his youth he saw nothing else
but black clay.
In my works its about differences. I
want to make it rain in the Sahara. And I
like water more than mud, he mutters to
Waalkens. In the meanwhile Van Elk and
Dibbets tread through the clay again in
the direction of Lucassen.
Bas Jan gives brother and wife a sign to
leave and shouts to the artists back on the
land:
I will go sailing.
Waalkens tells him to stop by again.
Maybe he could do a project at the farm.
And Ger yells:
Visit our International Institute for
Re-educating Artists!!
Three hours later on the Lake Sneek Bas
Jan savours the sensation of winds in the
sails and the movement of the boat on the
waves.
The artist reacts to the dominant art of his time, either by
doing the opposite or improving on the same.
I want to improve Duchamp, Bas Jan says.
Yeah, but the improvement is usually worse than the
original. The friends laugh. They share a sense of hu-
mour. What does Leavitt think of the Dutch television-
show Hoepla in which naked female-artist Phil Bloom
reads a newspaper?
Did you forget the nude, who was playing chess with
Duchamp?
That was during the exposition in the Passadena Mu-
seum, Los Angeles, in 1963!, Mary Sue remembers.
She had big tits, so she must be very intelligent, Bas Jan
jokes.
Male chauvi, the women react and ee to the
kitchen.
Bas Jan takes out the colourful record cover of Sgt. Pep-
pers from the Beatles; puts the needle cautiously on the
record and turns the volume to maximum. The guys
sing loud:
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
12 13
P
h
o
to
:
T
ja
r
k
T
ijd
e
n
s
In the 60s, Tjark Tijdens from Nieuw-Beerta
went on a trip to Canada and America. As part
of the journey, he visited Bas Jan Ader, who grew
up in Nieuw-Beerta as well, and at that moment
was living in Los Angeles. As little boys, Tjark
(on the left) and Bas Jan (on the right) did bike
to Winschoten together, where they both went to
school. Bas Jan even lived with the Tijdens family
for some time when he was young. This photo was
taken by a friend who travelled with Tjark through
America. Tjark only stayed at Bas Jan Aders for
a day. The photo has never been published before.
14 15
Die Welt mu romantisiert werden. So
ndet man den ursprnglichen Sinn wieder.
Romantisieren ist nichts, als eine qualitative
Potenzierung. Das niedre Selbst wird mit
einem bessern Selbst in dieser Operation
identiziert. () Indem ich dem Gemeinen
einen hohen Sinn, dem Gewhnlichen ein
geheimnisvolles Ansehn, dem Bekannten die
Wrde des Unbekannten, dem Endlichen
einen unendlichen Schein gebe so romantis-
iere ich es. - Novalis
Te world needs to be romanticised. Tats
the way to nd the original meaning again.
Romanticising is nothing but a qualitative po-
tentiating. Te humble self is identied with
a better self in this operation. () If I give
the ordinary a higher meaning, the common
a mysterious look, the known the value of the
unknown, the nite the appearance of innity
I am romanticising it. - Novalis
How is it possible that a person is homesick
in advance, suers of desire and want in
advance. It is horrendous. Te days before I
left Amsterdam, the Vondelpark was grey. Te
Jacob van Lennepkade where I live, looked
drably because of the nostalgia I laid upon it.
I watched the grass, the trees, the house as if I
was looking at a slide-projector that projected
without a break images from the past onto the
present. On the one side to record somewhere
in my memory, on the other side to say good-
bye to take distance to look at it out of
me, like something that wasnt mine or in me
anymore. I wanted to be ahead of the home-
sickness and doing so I made it impossible to
say goodbye in a proper way.
Fortunately I am surrounded by people who
are far more adventurous than me. People that
long for new places. Otherwise I wouldnt
have moved. On the most I would have trav-
elled to places where Ive ever been before.
Tese are the rst words I write in Berlin.
Why do I think it makes a dierence that
these are the rst words? Because I suer a
mental sensitiveness that I will try to describe
as clear as possible. I think I share this inner
life with Bas Jan Ader.
I know, as I write these words, one day I will
reread them and will think of this moment
and will be melancholic. What I am writing
down will determine the measure and the
nature of this inevitable melancholy. Tats
why I try to write down as objectively as I can
what I see and are going through.
For three days I live in Berlin now. I could
have walked any street in Berlin but I chose a
spot where Ive been before, the last time I was
here on a visit. I am sitting in the same cafe,
on the same corner of the pavement. Possibly
I am sitting in the same chair. Ive ordered the
same coee and these acts, these repetitions
make me feel at ease and possibly cause some-
thing that could be called happiness.
I cant help it: sentimentality swells in me,
seeping water I try to control with all means.
It runs under the dikes back into the polder.
Te water trickles everywhere, its up to my
waist and if I am not careful it will take over
my life. Tats why its of the greatest impor-
tance to keep a clear head. I wont get upset,
I think, while my stomach turns because of
things to come. What I am suering from,
is a perpetual and everything overwhelming
melancholy. It can be ebb or ow but always
there is this massive and inevitable ocean
I have to deal with. Or should I not con-
sider this melancholy autonomous and place
outside of me, do I make myself meek in
anticipation? Could the origin of my condi-
tion be due to a misunderstanding? I am I
hope the one who creates this melancholy
in the end. And yet, I am taken by surprise at
unpredictable moments. Its not a shirt I can
put on or take o. Melancholy oods me. It
summons me to surrender.
I become attached with the tree I am sitting
under because I sat under it yesterday as
well. I nd it hard to look at the sky above
the tree really good, because I know the
cloud passing will disappear as I look at it.
Never a cloud like that will pass this place
again.
As the white stain goes by and pines away
behind the top of the tree, I notice that the
instantaneous is swallowed by history. I cant
watch it and direct my eyes to cars that race
by on the horizon. Tey drive into a future.
Tey are on their way to new places, new
events. But I see too how they never again
will appear in my sight this way. I see them
speeding 75 miles per hour into oblivion.
To prevent myself from attaching I should
be on the move all the time, though theres
a chance I might get attached to the route I
am going. Te world that runs by like a lm,
I would like to see again and again.
Did Bas Jan Ader try to escape from his
attached, attaching nature when he left the
Netherlands behind and moved to Los An-
geles? Possible. How far he was moved away
from his place of birth Winschoten, yet he
kept making works about home. About what
he had gone through, about what had made
him into who he was.
Me or
the ocean
When Bas Jan Ader made All my clothes in
1970, a photo of his clothes spread on the
roof of his house, he repeated what his mother
had done as the Germans showed up and she
hastily had to nd some clothes. She threw
as much clothes as possible on the roof, she
describes in a book with memories about the
war, Een Groninger pastorie in de storm (A
Groningen vicarage in the storm), to collect
them later.
His father was executed in the war in a forest
and people say it is not a coincidence that Bas
Jan Ader portrayed himself in a wood, where
he stands still, inhumanly still, between the
trees. He is as rigid as the trees. Deathly, one
could say.
It is like he goes back in every work to an
awareness or event from the past. As if he
wants to relive again what passes by and has
passed by wants to lift above the transitory.
He stages history and turns it into an event
we can relate to.
A similar kind of shaping history I saw at
the Goethe Haus in Frankfurt where Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe was born August 28th
1749. In his writing room on the third oor
he wrote his rst poems, plays and the short
novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Te
Sorrows of Young Werther). Te photos I
ran into in the archive of the Goethe Haus
and I present in my artwork Te Writing
Room (lm + publication), give an image of
the writing room over a period of 150 years.
Te photo material shows the way how since
Goethes death the authentic situation he was
working in, is presented: a room with a writ-
ing table, a goose-quill and a line-up of books.
Basically they are staging history. With every
new employee of the museum something
changes in the furnishing of the authentic
room. Te quill is replaced by a pencil, the
books make way for a bust of plaster. Even
the silhouette drawings of his sister Goethe
supposedly made are replaced by versions of
which it is believed at that time they represent
the past to its full advantage.
By putting the many versions in the end I
found forty of the authentic writing room
next to each other, it is possible to watch his-
tory in its most complete form. Not only the
facts but also the interpretation of the facts
and the way they succeed each other and tell a
history of its own, are coming into view.
If this work claries something, it is that
authenticity, the real, is an approach. How
come I still hope to see a glimmer of the life
of Goethe, the writer himself, between the ob-
jects in his writing room? I know the writers
house has been rebuilt completely after it was
bombed in the Second World War. Te entire
house is a stage that nevertheless is visited by
masses of tourists who like it, me included.
We are looking for an image of the past and
meanwhile cause a new representation when
we walk the stairs and touch moulded furni-
ture hoping to get in touch with the past.
Ader set up a situation from a painting by
Casper David Friedrich, Der Mnch am Meer
(Te monk by the sea 1808-1810) when he
stood at the seaside with a pink-orange glow-
ing sunset and captured his silhouette with
the photo Farewell to Faraway Friends.
More than the posture of the monk, Ader
must have repeated what the painter had in
mind. Ader looks out over the sea in a way
Friedrich must have thought of for the monk.
In doing so Ader not only steps into the
painting but also in art-history. He salutes the
painter doing this, Romanticism Friedrich
is considered to be part of and at the same
time says farewell or creates a distance to
Friedrich and what he was representing. He
makes a performance out of the essence of
Friedrich. He derives a repeatable posture
from this very romantic representation.
On the one hand Ader banalizes the highly
romantic connotation and meaning of the
painting. On the other hand he exceeds the
despair of the individual who is lonely stand-
ing in his surroundings: Ader is as lonely as
the monk and with that also detached from
(art)history, from his predecessors, from his
Faraway Friends. I see he says farewell to all
his friends he has left behind but more impor-
tant: to all the friends he missed. Te friends
he will never have.
Am I sentimental. And can you call Bas Jan
Ader that? Because I dont want to rule out
anything I look up the meaning: governed by
feeling, sensibility. Are we romantic? 1. relat-
ing to the spirit of Romanticism, breaking
with classical models. 2. reminding of novels;
poetic dreaming and not considering reality.
Melancholic? With sad thoughts (of the past).
Synonyms: depressed, downhearted.
We are not only sentimental, romantic and
lled with melancholy. Constantly we are
aware of all kinds of sentimentality, roman-
tics and melancholy. We are hyper-romantic.
Hyper-sentimental. Hyper-melancholic. So
hyper that we are not. Like a blinding light,
we exaggerate and we weaken our own being.
We attach and detach at the same time. We
are. And we are not. Because where we are is
being discolored and aected by the inevitable
melancholy. Look. We have left already. We
will never come back, is what we repeat while
we cant move because of sheer sentimentality
that reaches our lips.
When Ader sailed away from Cape Cod in his
little boat in the direction of the Netherlands,
he left accompanied by a choir, according to
a script that makes us think of the history of
his father, who once stepped on a bicycle and
went to Palestine, seen of under the accompa-
niment of organ music. I think Ader wanted
to ask with his work: who decides what
happens, me or my surroundings? Me or my
history? Me or the ocean?
As an artist Ader challenged not only gravity
but also the course of history. We will always
be smashed if we hang from a branch of a
tree, like Ader did in 1971 for his lm Broken
Fall (organic). But as long as we challenge the
inevitable, like Ader does with his work until
this day, we are how temporary it may be
fully alive and kicking.
Berlin, August 2012.
Caspar David Friedrich, Der Mnch am Meer, 180810, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
words & images: Maria Barnas
I cant help it:
sentimentality
swells in me,
seeping water
I try to control
with all means
16 17
The gravity of
by God forsaken
ground
Five streets. One church. A pub. And four brothels.
Thats Nieuw-Beerta, the village in Groningen where
I grew up. My uncle from Amsterdam has been there
once in all the twenty years my parents lived there. A by
God forsaken ground, he felt. Literally, because it was
the land of the communists, the reds. Time after time I
had to hear this when I stayed with him. His favourite
subject for discussion: a descent into hell with a slow
train that stopped every few minutes at stations where
often nobody got in or got out. The last stop Nieuwe-
schans, the village next to Nieuw-Beerta. From the
platform my uncle saw the railway bend in the distance
after a straight track of 35 kilometres. According to him
trains would fall off the world when they would go
driving there.
The end of the world. Thats how I saw Nieuw-Beerta
for a long time. Bicycling down the Hammer-and-Sickle
Lane against the wind and no living soul around. When
VPRO-radio announced concerts that always seemed
to be organised in the west of the country. And when I
came home crying because I looked different and my
mother said: Be glad. Over here you can be special,
easily.
Loneliness. Isolation. Exception. It was part of my
youth. It goes with North-East Groningen. Especially
with hamlets like Nieuw-Beerta. There are people who
undergo the isolation meekly, who live there just be-
cause they are born there. They are used to it, a ten min-
utes drive in a car to the closest shop. Like they think
its normal not to choose a school because every village
has only one, Nieuw-Beerta hasnt got any. When I was
little only three kids of about the same age lived there.
In friendship there wasnt much to choose either. Maybe
thats the reason Ive had this nagging up to here now
and again about freedom of choice. I think people in
Nieuw-Beerta would never complain about that.
There are people though who choose consciously for
Nieuw-Beerta. People like my parents. People leav-
ing another part of the Netherlands, usually the west,
because they are attracted by the image of life in the
Groningen countryside. Tranquillity. Space. That kind
of stuff. The money they could rent a small appartment
from in Hilversum was enough for a little farm in Gro-
ningen. My mother saved about ve-thousand guilders
and was able to pay cash.
Often I wondered if it was a good choice. My father
stared out of the window remarkable lots of time. I
knew the mood wouldnt be lifted as summer ended and
the land turned into a black sea with waves of clay. And
my mother sighed wearily as I told her Marja Rumpf
was forbidden to play with me at our house. To her
parents it was not normal that our chickens and rabbit
were running around on the cemetery. You didnt allow
that to happen.
My mother was right. In North-East Groningen one is
regarded as different very soon.
Not that my parents were that deviated. Okay, the
VPRO-magazine* was delivered in our mailbox and we
had a garden where weeds ourished. That was some-
thing we had in common with our neighbours opposite,
a couple of psychologists from Amsterdam. They lay
naked in the garden and cuddled up, as naked, just like
that with the kids around. They ate lettuce with violets
of course you can eat owers too- and each night
after dinner they smoked some pot. A little weird but
mostly highly interesting. Also the parties of befriend
artists, who in large numbers took up settlement in the
sixties and seventies in the attest part of Groningen, I
enjoyed. People wore eccentric clothes they surely didnt
collect in the rose of the region Winschoten. They
got drunk and high with all consequences involved. At
one of these parties I saw a sculptor from Hongerige
Wolf kissing our opposite neighbour while his wife and
kids where just merrily walking around there too. A
week later the neighbour told me, I was ten, this guy is
driving me crazy. He keeps calling and we only kissed.
After that she lit a cigarette and I smelled the familiar
herbal scent.
I had never kissed but I was in love. Because I had
become tempted by people who were different, I had a
crush on the twins Martijn and Jeroen Staal. They too
lived in a farm - much bigger than ours with a wild
garden. The twins were beautiful like their mother. She
was of Indonesian origin. Very exotic because in Nieuw-
Beerta everyone was white. Most people were far from
handsome. Later I was told that the father whom I
hardly saw because most of the time he was in his own
room was very special too although he was as white
as the rest of Nieuw-Beerta. He sang songs in dialect.
Subsequently the father of Martijn en Jeroen was called
the Groningen Jacques Brel.
Ede Staal, hes dead for years already. Just like another
great artist who has lived in Nieuw-Beerta. Its strange
but until recently I knew only the name of this man. I
love Marina Abramovic for years but didnt know that
in the village I wasted so many slow days as a child in,
an artist had lived that had produced works at least so
interesting. As the artists I knew as a child complained
dramatically about the burden of life after too much
booze, Ader put this theme frankly in his work. His
tears became art.
Recently I cycled past the vicarage where Ader lived
and suddenly it was more than the spot where I, a few
years after his death, played with the children of the
vicar. Here a guy had lived who had no father any more
and according to tradition was a problem child. I have
known the woman who raised him. Whenever it was
Christmas my whole primary school, in total less then
30 children, went to mrs. Ader. She lived in the vicar-
age of Drieborg by then, ve kilometres from Nieuw-
Beerta. There were white table-cloths where we put our
Christmas owers on and she lit the candles. A ritual I
cherished although my father had his doubts about that.
Close before every Christmas he said: Are you going
you that woman Ader-Appels again? Shes as sneaky as
can be. My father thought all Christians to be hypocrite
so I dont know if it really was saying something about
her. I found it exciting, to pay a visit to a Christian. Jesus
seemed to be much more sympathetic than Marx, the
god of the communists. And mrs. Ader told the Christ-
mas-story and made hot chocolate real, not heated
Chocomel**- so I saw no reason whatsoever to have
something against Christians.
I had no clue that she has had a son who had died in a
very small boat and that the voyage was part of his art.
Now I know. And if I look at the videos in which I see
Ader fall, from a roof or into a canal then I think of a
train that falls off the world. Of long, dark winters. Of
all the space there is to ll with boredom and numer-
ous thoughts. And of a woman who lost husband and
child and lived in a huge vicarage all by herself. Gravity.
In North-East Groningen it is ineluctable for anyone.
Maybe the reason Ader wanted to tempt it.
* In Holland public broadcasters have members who can subscribe and receive usually a magazine with data on broadcasting. VPRO is regarded leftish and alternative.
** Chocomel is a brand name for packed chocolate-milk but because of the low percentage of cacao it is regarded widely as fake. It can be drunk cold and hot.
words: Britt Stubbe / image: Lennard Dost
The big audiences are not always familiar
with them but by colleague-artists they
are admired the artists artist.....
Where and when he saw that lm-clip
for the rst time in which a crying man
was looking into the camera for minutes,
Otto Wichers cant recall exactly. But it
was clear afterwards that he had to go
to the artists retrospective in 2006 in
Museum Boymans van Beuningen in
Rotterdam.
Lucky Fonz III, as Wichers names himself
as an artist, visited the exhibition of Bas
Jan Ader on the very last possible day.
I had a terrible u but wanted to go
anyhow. Perhaps of the fever I was a lit-
tle more emotional and receptive but it
struck me thoroughly. I had the feeling
I understood the work instantaneously
and thought it beautiful and touching at
the same time. Actually I didnt know
anything about him but immediately I
had this notion he was on the same wave-
length as I am.
The small oeuvre of Bas Jan Ader (1942-
1975) consists of performances, photog-
raphy and short lm-clips such as the cry-
ing Ader in Im Too Sad To Tell You
(1971) and Fall I (1970) and Broken
Fall (organic) (1971).
These Fall-clips come down to little
more than a man, Bas Jan Ader himself,
falling from a roof, bicycling into the
canal or hanging from a branch. This lasts
for several minutes and the waiting is for
the moment the branch breaks off and he
falls in the water. Its almost nothing and
yet it is thrilling. You know whats gonna
happen but you dont know when. Its
a theme in his work, people who take a
physical risk.
Because it is so minimal, your fantasy
can walk away with it totally. But to me
it was mainly a touching image, a man
falling or a man crying. You dont know
why, its about the act of crying itself.
At a glance theres not much to become
aware of but it evokes a world. In art it is
really this way, when it affects you truly,
you get personally related and it forces
you to consider your own work and life.
What do I have to do to cause the same
effect?
The beauty of Ader is that he, like Lucky
Fonz III in his own songs, doesnt try to
impress in his performances or lm-clips.
I like things sober and serene, not things
that explicitly want to be beautiful or
tempting. I dont like women like that
either.
Bas Jan Ader doesnt explain too much
in his works, something the musician
likes. Over his piano theres a postcard
representing a work by Ader, All My
Clothes. Clothes are to be seen, spread
out on a roof.
To me it points to baring ones thoughts,
nakedness and anti-materialism. Ideas
of which I hope they are present in my
work. Again its not about big gestures
but to me it has precisely the right tone,
thats why I watch it everyday. Whatever
Ader wanted to express with this photo-
graph, I am not interested
in it.
You wouldnt want to ex-
plain too much, Wichers
thinks. Whenever I sing a
song about a light-tower,
I can say: it is the one on
Vlieland. Thats a pity
however for the one who
gets a nice image of the
light-tower on Ameland.
Dont give up your sources, its better.
The work is nished only, certainly in
abstract art, if some-one premeditated
relates to it.
Thats something Lucky Fonz III tries to
achieve in his music. Bas Jan Ader pro-
duced very intimate and minimal work,
not glamorous or psychedelic at all, the
kind of thing youd expect in that era, the
Seventies. This sobriety Im striving for
too. When I visited the exhibition I was
a long way with my second album, Life
Is Short (2007). Visiting the museum
really had an impact on the album.
Thematically peculiar similarities were
noticed. In the songs by Wichers, sea,
islands, loneliness and sadness play an
important part. I had a song in which,
very bizarrely, a sailor disappears. Like
Bas Jan Ader who himself sailed out into
the ocean in 1975 as part of his art trilogy
In Search Of The Miraculous and fol-
lowing, disappeared and was never found
again.
It was very weird, in the exhibition I
ran into all kinds of proof I was on the
right track. As a consequence I started to
record everything even more minimal. I
took out all the second voices and simpli-
ed the arrangements. Thanks to Bas
Jan Ader I had the guts to minimize my
songs though from a career point-of-view
it wasnt really clever.
Thats the good thing in art, you are
supported by other artists through your
intuition. The core of being an artist is
still: why are you doing this and leaving
that, why this way and not that. Half of
the labour on the albums is not the music
itself but the decisions you have to make
whether to do something or not.
Though Bas Jan Ader struck his heart
with a little arrow and as a tribute he
called one of the songs In Search Of
The Miraculous, the musician isnt really
interested in the life of the visual artist.
I am impressed by the composition of
his works but apart from the fact that he
is Dutch and died in a boat when he was
33, I dont know anything about him. No
need to, for a better connection with his
work. Nowadays the relation between
the art and the artist is too much empha-
sized and theres too little attention for
the relationship between the art and the
viewer. Too often artists are obliged to
present evidence: I made this or that and
thats why I make this now. Delivering
a certicate of authenticity is nonsense.
I dont make music for me but for the
audience. In that process of making art,
being recognised and completed in the
head of some-one, I only feel like a small
part. Whenever I have written a song,
the source of inspiration is not important
anymore but the result is.
Or like Lucky Fonz III experienced it
while watching Bas Jan Aders Im Too
Sad To Tell You: Its about the sadness
itself, not the cause of it.
This interview was published before in
De Volkskrant, 7th of August 2009.
Its about the
sadness itself, not
the cause of it
Thanks to Ader
I had the guts
to minimize my
songs
words: Gijsbert Kamer / image: Sanja Marusic
18 19
The eyes track motion. If there are helicopters looking
for you, it is always best to hide in a bush or up in a tree
rather than running it out on foot. Your body heat will
probably give you away any way. If you have a helicopter
looking for you, bury yourself in mud and leaves and
you stand a chance of not being detected by your body
heat. A river, lake or stream can mask your body heat,
of course, yet those would be obvious places to look for
you.
Road blocks, police check points, sobriety checks, im-
migration check points, agricultural check points: You
may be stopped and searched, your identication exam-
ined, and possibly compromised in America for these
reasons while travelling on Americas highways. Even if
they dont have the check point up specically looking
for you, accidental catches happen frequently.
Leave town. Dont go to any place youve talked about
or stated a desire to visit. Dont run to any place predict-
able. Dont hide in a city or town youve ever been to or
contains known family members. Dont do something
obviously stupid like running to Las Vegas or Holly-
wood. If youre taking children out of an abusive family,
leave town and go immediately to a shelter in another
State - preferably a State which has laws which help to
protect battered men or women from their ex-spouses or
live-ins.
If you run to the hills, satellites can see you and identify
the type and color of the automobile youre driving. If
youve hidden yourself in a cabin, your thermal signa-
ture will be seen from satellites. Even if you drive to a
road and abandon your vehicle and walk to a cabin 30
miles away, a body heat source in a cabin in the desert
or in the woods with no corresponding automobile heat
source can signal where you are. Its suspicious.
Susanne Burner
Once, over a casual drink, my best friend
informed me that he looked forward to
his own death. He said he feels privi-
leged and anticipates the experience will
be the most amazing of his life. In the
same breath, he also revealed that he was
preparing for it. Hes preparing in such a
way that, not only will he be ready for it,
but when the time is right, he hopes to
will it by simply stopping his heart from
beating.
But how does one prepare for such a
thing? Whenever my friend encounters
some form of difculty, he consistently
exhibits a strange sort of delight. A smirk
slides across his face and his eyes begin
to twinkle. No matter the task, whether
pouring a concrete foundation for the
rst time (hes been renovating his house
for the past six years), or negotiating with
an ill-mannered insurance adjuster (hes
been robbed a dozen times), he never be-
comes discouraged. On the contrary, the
more complex the problem, the more his
interest seems to grow. And whats more,
in every one these situations, he always
manages to learn something from it.
He enjoys the puzzle, curious where each
complication will lead him. Which is not
to say that its easy for him, or that he
nds a masochistic sort of pleasure in it.
But that every crisis or setback, every bit
of trouble that he encounters throughout
his life (and he has no shortage of tri-
als), represents to him an opportunity to
discover something about how the world
itself works. Independent of any expecta-
tions he may have, every dilemma opens
onto a territory he has never experienced
before. Each predicament signals an
intrusion of the innite into the nite, a
manifestation of the immeasurable.
July, 2012
A Life on The Ocean Wave was a musical performance
inspired by the infamous voyage of artist Bas Jan Ader.
Setting sail to cross the Atlantic single handed, Aders In
Search of the Miraculous was a utopian journey of man
working with the elements. In Search of the Miraculous,
looks to sailing as a ritual to inspire a spiritual vitality in
contemporary living. In Galway, performers from Cois
Cladaigh Choir sang A life on the Ocean which was the
Sea Shanty played at the launch of Aders quest. Gazing
out over the Atlantic, A life of the Miraculous celebrates
mans search for meaning and our collective exploration
of the unknown.
Michelle
Browne
Derek Brunen
Groundwork
Jeremiah
Day
In 2005, Jeremiah Day made two works reecting on
Bas Jan Ader and the connection between his work and
his fathers experience in the resistance. Both photo-
graphed in the dunes by Bloemendaal, one shows the
urn containing the ashes of the bodies left there by the
Nazis; the second image is a nude image of the art-
ist himself in the dunes - the photo taken by Mieke
van der Voort, a romantic dutch artist who like Bas Jan
Ader died tragically young. Day had reversed Bas Jan
Aders migration and coming from Los Angeles to the
Netherlands and wanted to make an homage that would
re-ground Aders work in historical context, not just aes-
thetics. For this exhibition Day will make a new work, a
kind of update/supplement which also serves as an hom-
age to Mieke van der Voort, a great photographer who
was so frustrated by photography that she often wanted
to give up.
Theory and Observation, 2002
Standard Denition Video
4:02 minutes
On July 4, 2012, scientists announced the discovery of
the Higgs Boson, or the god particle. The scientists,
working at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, made
observations consistent with the particles speculated
characteristics. Numerous physicists, Stephen Hawk-
ing and Peter Higgs included, never believed it would
be found during their lifetimes. Slater Bradleys Theory
and Observation investigates blind faith. Both through
the voice of Hawking, a scientist lacking evidence for his
research, and the several beautiful voices of the Notre
Dame childrens choir, Bradley embraces the unseen.
Like Hawking, the teenagers depicted are conjuring the
unobservable, improvising what could be the sounds of
angels. Their faces are at once uncertain, vulnerable and
at times skeptical, perhaps reecting their own conict-
ing opinions about the hymns they sing.
But as the mystery of the god particle is unveiled,
an ostensible victory for science, how will intellectual
inquiry into the mysterious be affected? Bradleys video
asks this question by opposing the voices of religion with
the most identiable one in science.
My Conclusion /
My Necessity, 2005 2006
Standard Denition Video 7:20 minutes
In My Conclusion / My Necessity Slater Bradley en-
counters a sort of garden where winter lingers always.
In the Pre Lachaise cemetery, full of stone and death,
he skulks around, examining crypts with his soon-to-
be-dead Kodachrome lm stock. But, lo, as he rambles
amidst the graves and ashes, the rocknroll kicks in
and an angel appears. Ida, a snide adolescent is being
prepared by her mother as an offering to Oscar Wilde.
Her mouth is greased with red lipstick, and she is sent
forward to leave the mark of her hot young lips on the
cold stone. Like Wilde was in the habit of doing, Bradley
also champions the transformative powers of youth. The
young are unbelievably skilled at nding disruptive ways
to enjoy themselves. In Bradleys video, Ida represents
that disruption with her nave, carefree, unapologetic
energy that outshines everything around. Here is a
meeting between a youth, who has no use for and knows
nothing of death, and a somber cemetery replete with
the glorication of tragic ends. Ida is the joy-seeking
child who summons the Spring in a wintry garden of
graves.
After long research a picture started to emerge. Going
through a vast amount of archive material I stumbled
upon more and more interview clips where there seemed
to be a lack of clarity as to whom the person on camera
was actually referring to.
Yet they all spoke of Him. Sometimes the reports on
Him seemed to reinforce each other and sometimes they
seemed to contradict each other. Nevertheless there was
something in the tone of their voices and in the way
they raised their hands that made me sense some sort of
coherence in their experience. Sometimes I felt I caught
a glimpse of a silhouette reected in their eyes.
Gospels is work with an open-ended duration. As new
material is found new chapters will be added, slowly
completing and complicating the picture. A canon in the
making.
Erik Bnger
Slater Bradley
20 21
Dafna Maimon
The Unbearable Presence of Roots
2 Channel video installation, 11min, with 200 x 70 cm
sculpture, wax, pigment Styrofoam, 2010
At rst sight, THE UNBEARABLE PRESENCE OF
ROOTS is a classic video installation. Large screens dis-
play scenes that seem to cast directly back to the heyday
of melodrama: deathbed scenes illuminated in suitably
sentimental light, with the last gasping declarations of
love or confessions. Gradually, a disturbing element
seeps into the reality of the actors in the videos, causing
them to lose their roles. They are overcome by existen-
tial anxieties, and through their behavior disrupt the
conventions of lm.
Reality makes way for an anarchic situation in which
the viewer can no longer rely on the general rules of
lm language. What was sincere, touching and absorb-
ing at rst, now seems manipulative, out of place and
deceitful.
The installation is a reection on how we look at art and
lm. Art history inuences the making of visual arts in
complex ways, which determine what the viewer ex-
pects to see. By combining a classic approach to lighting,
camera work and acting with absurd kitsch hyper-reali-
ty, the viewer is engaged in an alienating and surrealistic
experience.
Toon Fibbe is interested in individuals who were marginalized in socie-
ty, for being perceived as different, while this difference propelled them
to local fame. One such gure was Koperen Ko, a street musician on
the streets of Rotterdam in the 1950s and 60s. One reason for his local
fame was his appearance, which was seen as unusual. He wore a cop-
per hat with bells attached, an accordion in his hands, and on his back
adrum that was played by drumsticks attached to his feet by a string. To
what extent these gures were still present in the minds of people and
whether they were part of shaping the identity of the city of Rotterdam
or rather used as tokens for it? Can these positions in society hold a cer-
tain power position, or did these people merely function as a plaything
reiterating a pre-existing identity of a place? Fibbe made a drum similar
to Kopern Kos and walked with it in the streets of Rotterdam. The
drum functioned as a tool that told a story, holding a connection to col-
lective memories surrounding gures like Ko. Walking or just entering
cafs with the drum sparked conversations about Koperen Ko and other
famous folk gures in Rotterdam and its surroundings. This revealed
that Koperen Ko was amongst several Koperen Kos in the Netherlands
leading to the realization that Koperen Ko had never been this singular
individual at the heart of the project, but a collection of people who
took on a preexisting role of the eccentric. Where the character of the
eccentric who reminds people of the different potentialities and alterna-
tives within a system is normally obliged to stay in a minority position,
the character Koperen Ko seemed to suggest other possibilities.
Toon Fibbe, Each of us was several
Toon Fibbe
Sjoerd van Leeuwen, Harald den Breejen
TERRA NOVA, 2012
Guido van der Werve
In this piece we see the artist doing a 24 hours perform-
ance on the geographical North Pole on April 28 and
29 of 2007. During this period Guido van der Werve is
turning one full circle clockwise, opposite the direction
of the Earths rotation, thus not turning with the world
for one day. He stands completely alone in the frozen
wilderness as the weather changes and the day progress-
es. The piano music for this lm is composed and
performed by the artist himself. For this work Guido
van der Werve prepared for over a year with a rigorous
training program. The result is a 8 min 40 sec. time-
lapse movie. It is one of the rst lms by Guido van der
Werve in which endurance is a part of the work.
Courtesy of Gallery Juliette Jongma Amsterdam. Images
and sound by Ben Geraerts.
Sjoerd
van Leeuwen
... but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which
has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help
one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as
ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took them;
things have come out against us, and therefore we have
no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of providence,
determined still to do our best to the last ... Had we lived, I
should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance,
and courage of my companions which would have stirred
the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our
dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich
country like ours will see that those who are dependent on
us are properly provided for. [Robert F. Scott, Last Mes-
sage. Scotts Last Expedition vol 1, pp 605-07.]
In our collaborative project TERRA NOVA we will at-
tempt to reach the centre of the Netherlands most merciless
landscape, the Wadden Sea, with a replica of Scotts sled.
This journey faces us not only with the terrain itself, but
also with various legislative and bureaucratic hurdles. Thus
our quest leads us both through the physical world and the
informational spheres in which we reside.
Erik Wesselo (1964 s-Hertogenbosch Netherlands)
makes lms that are marked by a clear beginning and
end, but in between everything stays the same.
Wesselo uses lm, the medium of the moving image to
bring time to a standstill. For the duration of the lm he
tries to capture the viewer with this one image.
He uses the camera as a parallel to his psychological ex-
perience. The tragic moments in the lms coalesce with
their liberating potential.
Wesselos Dffels Mll (1997 16 mm 5.23 min color
mute) begins with Wesselo attached to the sail of a
windmill rotating swiftly counterclockwise. By binding
himself to the blade of the windmill, the artist is simul-
taneously empowered and powerless. Flying through the
air at great heights he experiences the rush of being able
to survey his surroundings from a new perspective.
Erik Wesselo
Frederic Klein
Nummer negen - The Day
I didnt turn with the World.
840, time-lapse photography to
HD video, Geographic Northpole, 2007
In de schemer / In the gloom
In this lm: In the gloom I say goodbye to my youth.
I grew up near the dunes and since I was a little boy I
always used to go there when I didnt know how to con-
tinue. For hours and hours I was walking and writing,
and always when I left them I knew exactly what to do. I
could breath again!
The dunes gave me so much, that when I moved to
Amsterdam it felt I had to give something back to them,
an ode to the dunes. So February 2011, I lived in (my) a
bunker for one week and lmed the dunes as how they
always appeared to me. With this lm I show the dunes
as if they hold my character. And because I am a painter,
the shots I choose appear to you as if you are looking at
a painting.
22 23
The authors opinions taken up in
this publication do not necessar-
ily reect the view of the editors.
Copyright is held by the individual
authors. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, presented or
published otherwise without the
prior written permission of the
authors. The authors and artists
reserve all rights, including image
rights, to submitted images.
Editorial Address
Stichting In Search of...
Irislaan 8b
9713 RH Groningen
The Netherlands
info@insearchof.nl
www.insearchof.nl
Content Management
Lennard Dost
info@insearchof.nl
Production
Editor-in-chief: Lennard Dost
Graphic Design
Enkeling & Erikenik
www.enkeling.nl
www.erikenik.nl
Translation Dutch-English
Klaas Koetje(texts: Maria Barnas,
Feiko Beckers, Yasmijn Jarram,
Gijsbert Kamer, Britt Stubbe,
Marion van Wijk)
Print
NDC Grasch Bedrijf, Leeuwarden
Contributing Authors
Maria Barnas, Feiko Beckers,
Slater Bradley, Michelle Browne,
Derek Brunen, Erik Bnger,
Susanne Burner, Dalstar,
Jeremiah Day, Lennard Dost,
Enkeling, Toon Fibbe,
Margreet de Heer, David Horvitz,
Yasmijn Jarram, Gijsbert Kamer,
Frederic Klein,
Mare van Koningsveld,
Sjoerd van Leeuwen
& Harald den Breejen,
Dafna Maimon, Britt Stubbe,
Guido van der Werve,
Erik Wesselo, Marion van Wijk
During the exhibition,
the In Search of...-newspaper
can be bought at Academy
Minerva (Groningen),
the Reformed Church (Nieuw
Beerta) and the Waalkens Gallery
(Finsterwolde).
Colophon
Locations
More information,
see www.insearchof.nl
The Reformed Church in Nieuw-Beerta pre-eminently is a location connected to
the life of Bas Jan Ader. Bas Jan Aders father, Bastiaan Jan Ader (1909 1944) was
minister of this church from 1938 until his death in 1944. The family lived in the
vicarage on the opposite side of the road (its not there anymore). As Bas Jan Ader
was 2 years old, his father was executed by the German occupying forces. He was
taken into custody because he gave shelter to Jewish people and was in the end
executed in retaliation because of an attack in which a German was killed. The Re-
formed Church has been built in 1856 and is the successor of a 17th century church.
The church is widely known as waterstaatskerk*
In the exhibition in Nieuw-Beerta, to be seen from 2nd of September through 28th
of October 2012, direct references will be made with the (family)history of Bas Jan
Ader and his oeuvre. For instance by Marion van Wijk & Koos Dalstra who did
research on Bas Jan Ader for decades now.
www.groningerkerken.nl
The late Albert Waalkens (1920-2007), also known as boer Waalkens, was a farmer
and landowner in Finsterwolde, a small, remote village in Groningen. In the early
sixties he started a gallery in the stables of his farm, where he invited artists to work
and live on his property. Out of curiosity and inspired by local artists like Siep van
den Berg and Karl Pelgrom, he developed a keen sense for art and emerging artists.
In 1973, Bas Jan Ader took part in a group show in Waalkens Gallery, which also
included artists Gilbert & George, William Leavitt and Ger van Elk. The exhibition
was organised by the famous Dutch gallery Art & Project from Amsterdam. Just re-
cently, Albert Waalkens granddaughter Merel Waalkens, and her partner Boudewijn
Rosman, architect and former teacher at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Amsterdam),
moved back to Finsterwolde, where they both grew up, to restart the gallery.
Curator Danil Dennis de Wit will give some lessons to students of art academy
Academie Minerva (Groningen) in September and October. During these lessons
the students will get busy with the themes of Ader. The works they will produce are
shown at Gallery Waalkens on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th of October.
www.galeriewaalkens.nl
In early days the Groningen Museum was located in the building where art academy
Academie Minerva is housed now. If he had succeeded to reach Europe with his
boat, Bas Jan Ader would have had an exhibition there. The exhibition was already
planned by the Groningen Museum. After Ader was reported missing the exhibition
was cancelled. With this project we bring his legacy, if you can call it that, to this
place in question after all.
The exhibition in Academie Minerva runs from 6th through 28th of October and
focuses on creation of myth and adoration. In the exhibition there will be no liter-
ally references with Bas Jan Ader, his family-history or his oeuvre. More than that:
the name of Bas Jan Ader will be mentioned hardly in Groningen. Instead artists
are playing with the way myths are created, look into how we adore and play with
the romantic notion. The artists are working in the spirit of Bas Jan Ader but for
instance also talk about the role of religion in relation to science. What you see, you
have to project on the life and art by Ader. You can also watch the exhibition in
itself; the artists are searching than, the art is searching or the main characters in the
artworks are searching.
www.academieminerva.nl
Academie Minerva
Praediniussingel 59, Groningen
06.10 - 28.10
Feiko Beckers / Slater Bradley / Derek Brunen
Erik Bnger / Toon Fibbe / David Horvitz
Frederic Klein / Sjoerd van Leeuwen
Dafna Maimon / Guido van der Werve
Erik Wesselo
Monday through Thursday: 9.00 - 21.00 hrs.
Friday: 9.00 - 17.00 hrs.
Saturday and Sunday: 11.00 - 17.00 hrs.
Admission is free

Galerie Waalkens
Hoofdweg 39, Finsterwolde
27.10 & 28.10
Saturday and Sunday: 12.00 - 17.00 hrs.
Admission is free
Reformed Church
Hoofdweg 18, Nieuw-Beerta
02.09 - 28.10
Michelle Browne / Derek Brunen
Susanne Burner / Jeremiah Day
David Horvitz / Marion van Wijk & Koos Dalstra
Friday through Sunday: 12.00 - 17.00 hrs.
Admission is free
* Waterstaat refers to waterworks such as making dikes and polders,
the way Nieuw-Beerta came into existence.
** Roman Catholic Hospital is the translation of the Dutch Rooms-Katholiek
Ziekenhuis; Oude stands for old or former.
Thanks to:
P
h
o
to
:
Je
lle
d
e
G
r
o
o
t
P
h
o
to
:
P
e
te
r B
u
ite
r
Supports In Search of...
RKZ
Emmastraat 15/S101, Groningen
The lm-program of In Search of.... is curated and coordinated by Mare van
Koningsveld, and takes places from 12 through 15 October 2012 in the cinema of
the former Roman Catholic Hospital in Groningen, in Groningen also named Oude
RKZ or RKZ**. The RKZ-cinema is existing for 32 years now and shows special
lms each week, both mainstream and sub-cultural.
The program:
Friday 12.10 Erasing David
David Bond, Melinda McDougall, 2010
In this documentary director David Bond tries to make himself untraceable for two
private investigators whom he ordered to nd him. Is it actually still possible these
days with Facebook and GPS to (remain) disappear(ed)? (MvK)
Saturday 13.10
Here is always somewhere else
Rene Daalder, 2007
Filmmaker Rene Daalder (1944) moved to Los Angeles too some ten years after Bas
Jan Ader did. In this documentary he looks into the similarities between Aders life
and his and what motivated the artist to undertake the riskiest sailing voyage ever.
Extra: The documentary will be introduced by Rene Daalder himself who
comes from Los Angeles to Groningen especially for this event. (MvK)
Sunday 14.10 Jour de Fte Jaques Tati, 1949
In the oeuvre of Ader a clear love for slapstick can be noticed. Its understood that for
the work Fall 2 (Amsterdam) he was inspired by a scene in this movie about a mailman
in the French countryside. (MvK)
Monday 15.10 Gerry Gus van Sant, 2002
Two boys, accidentally both called Gerry, get lost in a desert. In the impressive but
cruel landscape they try to nd the way back into the civilised world. (MvK)
Every day In Search of the Miraculous
Sam Kuhn, 2011
The short lm In Search of the Miraculous (2011) by young lm-maker Sam Kuhn
will be shown prior to the main movie. Kuhn based his dreamy short movie on the life
of Ader. (MvK)
Start: 20.30 hrs.
A ticket is 6- per movie. Strippenkaart (10x): 35,-
Showing CJP, Stadjerspas or students card of the studies Kunst, Cultuur en
Media (Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen) the second ticket is for free!
The lobby is open half an hour before the start; reservations not possible.
www.rkzbios.nl
24