Bas

Jan
Ader
Please dont leave me

Bas Jan Ader

Please dont leave me

Contents
Foreword

Bas Jan Ader (19421975 missing at sea)

The man who wanted to look beyond the horizon
Erik Beenker

Curb your romanticism: Bas Jan Aders slapstick

Jrg Heiser

25

And he fell into the sea

Tacita Dean

29

The works of Bas Jan Ader

Alexandra Blttler and Rein Wolfs
Photographs
Films
Video
Installationsperformances
Works on paper
Books and ephemera
Early works
Posthumously published works

31
34
74
86
88
106
114
132
136

In the film I silently elucidate everything concerning falling

Elbrig de Groot

143

The notions of fall and rise were to be explored

Doede Hardeman

149

List of exhibitions and bibliography

157

Biography

171

Authors

173

Colophon

174

Bas Jan Ader

5

Foreword

Thirty years after Bas Jan Ader failed to return from a solo crossing of the Atlantic, the interest in his work
continues to grow. In less than ten years he created some thirty-five works of art in which falling, physical and
emotional vulnerability and mortality are the central themes. Aders early work could be comic. For his graduation in 1967 he produced a poster showing him sitting in a wicker chair on the roof of his house in Los Angeles
smoking a cigar, surrounded by cartoon depictions of clouds. The serious films and photo works he made
several years later, in which he bursts into tears, or falls off his roof or out of a tree, are harrowing, moving and
unforgettable. Bas Jan Ader left behind a small, intriguing and important oeuvre.
A premature death, a small oeuvre, a good deal of travelling and many years spent abroad these are not generally the conditions whereby an artist makes his name. However, through the eloquence of his work and the
impression Ader made on his contemporaries; the efforts of Paul Andriesse, who began to publish on Ader in
1986, and Christopher Mller, whose catalogue appeared in 2000, Aders oeuvre is more tangible and better
known than ever. Bas Jan Ader may not have proved immortal, his work is proving otherwise.
In 1992 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen bought eight photo works from the period spanning 1969-1972
from his estate. This was one of the museums most important acquisitions of the decade and one that fits
beautifully amongst the museums Surrealist collection. There are frequent requests to borrow the works. To
coincide with his retrospective exhibition at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen we are proud to publish this
book as a contribution to the ongoing research into Bas Jan Aders work. In order to underline his significance
in 2006 we have invited an artist, two critics and two curators to write about the artist. In addition each work
has been meticulously described and contextualised with the help of information gleaned from conversations,
correspondence, new biographical and bibliographical research and archives that have until now remained
inaccessible or unknown.
I would like to extend my thanks to the Camden Arts Centre for its collaboration and to Mary Sue AderAndersen, Erik Ader, Adriaan van Ravesteijn of Galerie Art & Project, Ger van Elk, Rene Daalder and Daniel
Congdon of Patrick Painter Editions for their unstinting support in this project.

Sjarel Ex
Director Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Bas Jan Ader

7

Bas Jan Ader

(19421975 missing at sea)

The man who wanted to look

beyond the horizon
Erik Beenker

It was to be an adventurous voyage and the middle section of a grand trilogy of works entitled In search of the
miraculous. For Bas Jan Ader (Winschoten, 1942) it was also to be an attempt at breaking the world record for
a single-handed crossing of the Atlantic in the smallest craft to date, a mere four metres in length; sponsors
1
for the project, however, had not been forthcoming. Was this hubris? He was to depart from Cape Cod,
which sounds not too dissimilar to God.
2
At two o clock in the afternoon on 9 July 1975 he sailed out of the harbour. His wife Mary Sue remained
ashore to photograph the boat until it disappeared on the horizon. One of the photographs appeared in
Bulletin no.89, designed by Bas Jan, issued by the Amsterdam-based gallery Art & Project. A day before his
departure he had sent a card to the gallerys owners Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn: See
3
you in 8-10 weeks. Bas Jan. This was his final message. He was spotted by fishermen sixty miles out to sea
4
and was later sighted again near the Azores. He was never seen again.
1. Guppy pocket cruiser measuring 12 feet and 6 inches, without motor.

(Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor

2. The postcard that Ader wrote to Art & Project the day before his departure is dated:

Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague.

8 June 1975. One day later Mary Sue added that he had left at 2.00 p.m. on 9 June.

3. idem

There must be a mistake, which Mary Sue later confirmed. Art & Project archive

Bas Jan Ader

9

He was awaited at the Groninger Museum. An exhibition of the second and third parts of In search of the mirac5
ulous was due to open on 6 December. The first part had been shown earlier that year at the Claire S. Copley
Gallery in Los Angeles, during which a student choir had sung sea shanties to a piano accompaniment, with the
6
lyrics of A life on the ocean wave shown on the wall. There were also eighteen photographs of a nocturnal, flashlit
search that Ader had undertaken in 1973 through Los Angeles, his home since 1963. The search began in a
canyon on the eastern edge of the city and ended at the ocean. Ader had handwritten the lyrics of the
Coasters 1957 hit Searchin in white ink on the black and white photographs. He intended to complete the
trilogy with a night time search through Amsterdam and to present it in Groningen together with the second part
the sea crossing. Once again a student choir would sing shanties against the backdrop of A life on the ocean wave.
Ocean Wave was also the name of his sailing boat, which had been adapted for the cross-Atlantic trip. He
fully expected to arrive safely. The boat was unsinkable and Ader was attached to it by a lifeline.
Furthermore, he was an experienced sailor. In 1962-63 he had already crossed the ocean from Morocco to
7
California on a 15-metre yacht in the company of the crafts owner. It had taken them months and they were
beset with misfortunes; they had withstood a hurricane and endured the doldrums for weeks on end leaving
them with scarcely any food or water. Now Ader was prepared for any eventuality and had stocked the boat
with sufficient provisions for 180 days. No, this did not look like a suicide attempt, as some assumed, or an
extreme form of tempting fate.
What is strange is that Ader would not allow Mary Sue to read any of the accounts of earlier solo crossings
such as that of the American Robert Manry, who sailed from Falmouth, Massachusetts to Falmouth,
8
Cornwall in 1965 in his yacht Tinkerbelle. Ader intended to complete the voyage in an even smaller boat.
Mary Sue was thus oblivious to the hardships that Manry described, such as frequently being thrown overboard
and suffering terrible hallucinations.
Later a book about Donald Crowhurst, who participated in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a non-stop,
9
single-handed, round-the-world yacht race in 1968, was found in Aders locker at the art school where he taught.
During the race Crowhurst had radioed false positions and had in fact never left the Atlantic Ocean. On the
home run he learned that he stood to come second and therefore ran the risk of his fraudulent logbooks
being scrutinised by the judges. Fearing his deceit would be made public, and losing his sanity, he wrote an
incoherent book-length apologia and jumped overboard. The logbooks were later found on his abandoned
yacht. What are we to read into the discovery of the Crowhurst story amongst Aders effects? An omen that
Bas Jan Ader planned to disappear at sea and thus enter mythology?
Mary Sue, now in the Netherlands, waited in vain. The exhibition was cancelled; there was no trace of Ader.
His younger brother Erik, also a passionate yachtsman who would later sail around the world, attempted to track
4. This essay makes use of information from an as yet unpublished manuscript about

the exhibition slides of the performance were projected and a recording of the singers

Bas Jan Ader by Koos Dalstra & Marion van Wijk, which will be published in the two

was played.

following books: Dalstar & Van Wijk, TMC/14-76, Veenman Publishers, April 2006

7. On 26 October 1962 the newspaper Nieuwsblad van het Noorden published a travel

and Dalstar & Van Wijk, Ocean wave, Bas Jan Ader, Veenman Publishers, July 2006.

report that Ader sent on 15 September from the Panama Canal. On 6 January 1963

We are grateful to be able to refer to the following chapters and page numbers in the

the Los Angeles Times reported that the yacht was towed into San Diego harbour by a

manuscript: I p. 11, II p. 22, III p. 40, p. 41, V p. 59, VII p. 101, p. 103, p. 117, p. 118,

naval ship.

p. 120, p. 125, p. 128, VIII p. 130.

8. Robert Manry, Tinkerbelle, New York, 1965.

5. The exhibition was originally planned for the autumn. Finally it was to take place in

9. Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, The strange last voyage of Donald Crowhurst,

Groningen from 6 December 1975 4 January 1976.

London, 1970.

6. The choir performed at the opening of the exhibition. Throughout the duration of

Bas Jan Ader

10

10

him down. But to no avail. Mary Sue informed Aders mother, concerned about her sons fate, that in the region
11
where Bas Jan had been sailing that summer there was talk of a complete lack of winds for some eighty days.
On 18 April 1976 Spanish fishermen came across Aders boat, largely under water, 150 miles west south west
of Ireland. The mast, handrails, the self-steering mechanism and a hatch that had been specially sealed for
the journey, were all missing. The lifeline, by which Ader was secured to the boat, appeared to have been
roughly yanked free. The algae growth and barnacles on the boat suggest that it had lain in this position for
approximately six months, so that it must have capsized mid-October. The fishermen took the boat back to
12
their homeport, La Corua, where a local newspaper published an article with a photograph of the wreck.
Mary Sue was informed and travelled to La Corua with the artists brother. The harbour authorities concluded
that there had been an explosion on board, but Erik Ader doubted this. Based on the information they supplied,
he surmised that the boat had been hit sidelong by a wave that had carried Bas Jan, lifeline and all, overboard. He knew that this could have happened because of a construction fault he had noticed when the boat
was being made seaworthy. However, he could not prove it since, in the meantime, the boat too had been
lost. All that remained were Aders soaked identity papers, a plastic sextant, a pair of sunglasses and a waterdamaged camera. What had happened on board remains a mystery.
Following the discovery, and subsequent loss, of the wreck, Bas Jans mother a religious minister and writer
wrote in a pastoral letter to her parish: I sensed it already on an early Sunday morning in October when I
received a telepathic message and a poem welled up in me, in English, the language that I often used with
13
Basjan and in which we corresponded, so that Mary Sue could read it too. I shall give it to you, but you
must be satisfied that this shall be the only mention I make of it. I cannot talk about it. This is the poem that
came to her on Sunday 12 October 1975:
From the deep waters of sleep
From the deep waters of sleep I wake up to consciousness.
In the distance I hear a train rumbling in the early morning.
It is going East and passes the border. Then it will stop.
I feel my heart beating too. It will go on beating for some time.
Then it will stop.
I wonder if the little heart that has beaten with mine, has stopped.
When he passed the border of birth, I laid him at my breast,
Rocked him in my arms.
He was very small then.

10. Erik Ader was a crewmember on a boat that participated in the Whitbread Round

lifejacket was found. All evidence points to the Ocean Wave having only a single

the World Race, which began at Portsmouth, England on 27 August 1977.

crewmember, who wished to cross the Atlantic Ocean, was surprised by a storm and

11. Moeder Ader in Drieborg bezorgd over haar zoon. Kunstenaar spoorloos op

perished. Information from an unpublished manuscript by Koos Dalstra and Marion

Atlantische Oceaan, Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 1 December 1975.

van Wijk. See note 4.

12. La Voz de Galicia, 29 April 1976: A torn US flag was found in the cabin, but no

13. Het raadselachtige beeld, July/August 1976.

Bas Jan Ader

11

A white body of a man, rocked in the arms of the waves,

Is very small too.
What are we in the infinity of ocean and sky?
A small baby at the breast of eternity.
Have you ever heard of happiness
Springing from a deep well of sorrow?
Of love, springing from pain and despondency, agony and death?
Such is mine.
More than thirty years after his disappearance, Bas Jan Aders work still speaks to the imagination. The number
of exhibitions grows and with it too the number of artists inspired by his work. He is still an artists artist, but the
breakthrough to a larger audience does not seem far off now. There are films about him in production, a stage
play and the books and catalogues are piling up; installations by him that he never sanctioned have appeared
14
on the market. In short, the Bas Jan Ader circus has come to town. Is Ader, as some fear, becoming the James
Dean of visual art? Or a new Van Gogh? In any case, what they share in common is a brief heyday brought to
a tragic and sudden end. The silent admiration of a small group of devoted connoisseurs is soon to be
replaced by the growing clamour of fans.
Bas Jan Aders mysterious disappearance plays a role in all this, but it cannot be the only reason for the swelling
interest in him. It is also due to the strength of his images and statements. They manage, in a single instant, to
burrow into the memory and then later unfold as works with a greater complexity and integrity than one
could have imagined based on their modest, even fragile appearance.
The majority of his work comprises staged falls captured in photographs and
short, black and white, silent films. The first, Fall 1, Los Angeles, 1970 shows Ader
sitting on a chair on the ridge of the pitched roof of his house. Before our eyes, he
and the chair topple and fall. His fall is slowed somewhat by the less steep gradient
of the veranda roof, following which he crash-lands in the garden. He could easily
have broken his neck and indeed his wife, who filmed the fall, once intimated
that he was badly hurt, but would say nothing more on the matter so as not to dispel the magic. It is the fall itself that matters, not the preparation or the aftermath.
The end of the fall is also the films end; all the films are therefore extremely short.
In Fall 2, Amsterdam, also 1970, Ader rides an old bicycle alongside a canal with both
hands on the handlebars but with a bunch of flowers in one hand, which makes the
steering rather difficult. He takes the bend a little too wide and plunges, still on the
bicycle, into the water. The film Broken fall (organic), Amsterdamse Bos, Holland,
1971 begins with Ader hanging from the branch of a tree above a ditch until he can
no longer maintain his grip and lands in the water close to the bank. In Broken fall
(geometric), 1971, he stands on a path in Westkapelle. In the background is the
lighthouse that featured in some of Piet Mondrians early paintings. Ader falls
sideways against a sawhorse (the geometric element). This film concerns not only
14. Wade Saunders, In dreams begin responsibilities, Art in America, February 2004.

Bas Jan Ader

12

falling but also the historical dispute between Mondrian, who worked only with
vertical and horizontal lines, and Theo van Doesburg, who admitted the dynamic
of the diagonal in his work.
In fact most of the works concern falling, even those where this is not immediately
obvious such as the film and photograph Im too sad to tell you, 1970 in which Ader
is seen crying. Is this a reference to the Man of sorrows the weeping Christ
a common theme in mediaeval painting? Nonetheless, falling is also the central
theme here, as Ader himself admitted, for the tears stream down his face.
Ader plays with the phonetic and conceptual similarities of the words fall and fail.
The comic aspect of the fall is central to slapstick, circus clowning and commercial televisions obsession with
pratfalls in home movies. The laughter response to the fall is one of relief. From the moment we learn to walk,
the possibility of falling is humiliating. But is also a primal fear of giving in unwillingly to the force of gravity.
It was not for nothing that the images of people falling from the burning twin towers of the World Trade Center
were so heart stopping. In history, mythology and the Bible, the fall is often synonymous with ruination, the
end: pride comes before a fall, kingdoms and empires fall, cities fall, the fall of Icarus, the Fall of Lucifer, the
Fall of Man.
As the son of preachers, Ader would have been fully conversant with the biblical significance of the Fall. In one
15
of his notebooks from 1968 there is a scribbled note about the fall of the walls of Jericho. But falling must
also have had a traumatic personal meaning for him. He was two and a half years old when his father, a key figure
in a network of resistance fighters helping to hide Jewish families, was arrested. A day before the resistance
had planned to set him free he was transferred to a notorious prison in Amsterdam, where he was interrogated
and severely mistreated. Soon afterwards the resistance attacked a group of German soldiers and in retaliation
six prisoners, including Bas Jan Aders father, were shot dead by a firing squad. Ader, who was named after his
father and who was supposed to follow in his footsteps as a preacher, must often have recalled his fathers
death, particularly during the official two minutes silence each year on 4 May for those who lost their lives in
16
the Second World War.
In 1972, in an interview about falling and his fathers death, he said: I have always been fascinated by the tragic.
15. The fall of Jericho quite literally 'Jericho' painted or in letters falling (en) off a wall...
Note in one of Aders notebooks, quoted by Brad Spence in the catalogue for Aders
exhibition at the Art Gallery, University of California, Irvine (25 February 20 March
1999). Other noteworthy remarks are: Greeting from beautiful Ader Falls;
All is Falling; Rolling into a freshly dug grave; I can think around corners; Whole series
of photographs on dead in ocean, being washed ashore. My body practicing having
been drowned; The sea, the land, the artist has with great sadness known they too
will be no more.
16. Bastiaan Jan Ader was shot by firing squad on 20 November 1944 in the Schupse
Bos near Rhenen. He was arrested together with two German deserters and a Jew on
their way to a new hiding place. (Johanna Adriana Ader-Appels, Een Groninger pastorie
in de storm, Amsterdam 1945).

Bas Jan Ader

13

That is also contained in the act of falling; the fall is failure. Someone once said to me: I can well imagine
that you are so obsessed with the fall; thats because your father was shot. That is obviously a far too anecdotal
interpretation. Everything is tragic because people always lose control of processes, of matter, of their feelings.
17
That is a much more universal tragedy, and that cannot be visualised from an anecdote. Ader later distanced
18
himself from this interview: so many misunderstandings and factual inaccuracies. Nonetheless the passage
gives some insight into his motifs and reinforces statements in earlier interviews. The constant in his work is
his striving for universal images, which communicate directly and which transcend their physical form. Even
if formally his work was very diverse, this was always his aim.
In 1961 the 19-year-old Ader exhibited an ink drawing in Washington DC and was given a glowing review in
19
The Washington Post. He was interviewed by The Voice of America and some of his works were sold;
Jacqueline Kennedy is said to have bought a drawing. He was a sensation. The Dutch press reported the story
and back in Holland Ader was interviewed by reporters. He told one journalist, in English: Painting is like
making love, and then continued in Dutch, Dont translate that with sex because that has too cheap a connotation. The journalist found him unbearable: And who could blame this 19-year-old youngster with his
short hair combed forward and his seamans jumper and jeans for being so full of himself? He is so selfassured as to be almost conceited. In his Groninger Dutch, but with an American accent, he makes severe
statements such as: I am not a Groninger and I am not a Dutchman, but neither am I an American or anything else. I am Basjan. I dont want to be anything except Basjan myself. He paints exclusively in black,
white and grey because: I dont like that trickery with pretty colours. I want to be as honest as possible and do
20
not need colours to represent my ideas. He came across as a disarming braggart, but was very serious about
21
his work: I believe that limiting my materials spurs me on to a more honest expression. Even then he was
aiming for the essence of things. With the money from his sales he planned to spend a year in isolation studying
and painting. Had the search for the miraculous already begun?
But how had he actually come to be in Washington D.C. in the first place? Before that Ader lived with his
mother and younger brother Erik in Nieuw-Beerta in a remote corner of eastern Groningen. They were close
to Drieborg (where they would later relocate), the neighbourhood of Hongerige Wolf (literally Hungry Wolf),
five kilometres or so from the harbour town of Statenzijl aan de Dollard (which discharges into the North Sea)
and not far from the German border. He frequently played truant, preferring to accompany the prawn fishers
on the Waddenzee.
As an unmanageable 14-year-old he was sent to a foster home and then to a boarding school. He had to repeat
several years and did not complete his secondary education. Nonetheless he was admitted to the Instituut
voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs in Amsterdam (since 1967 the Gerrit Rietveld Academie). The artist Ger van
Elk, who made Aders acquaintance at the college and remained a good friend, has said that Ader did curious
22
things. For example, he used the same sheet of paper for all his drawing assignments, simply erasing one
17. Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val, Haagse Post, 5

president..., The Washington Post, 23 April 1961, p. 6. The Dutch press was informed

January-11 January 1972.

via a cultural bulletin from the United States Information Service on 19 April 1961.

18. Letter from Bas Jan Ader to Poul ter Hofstede, 20 August 1974, Groninger

20. Bob Nahuisen, Amerika bracht Basjan (19) uit Groningen onverwacht succes, Het

Museum exhibitions archive, Groninger Archieven, Groningen. See: pp. 155-156.

Vrije Volk, 26 July 1961, p. 9.

19. Stephen S. Rosenfeld, Dutch artist, 18, molds philosophy and jazz, The

21. Bas Jan Ader exposeert in Verenigde Staten. Zoon van het Groningse land,

Washington Post, 22 April 1961, p. 34; Leslie Judd Ahlander, If an art critic were

Amersfoortse Courant, 22 April 1961, p. 7.

Bas Jan Ader

14

drawing and starting another. After some time the paper was wafer thin. In response to a project to make a threedimensional object, Ader stuck one brick on top of another with some mortar. At the presentation he lifted
the top brick, allowing the lower one to fall to the floor. He did not complete the course.
In 1961, back from Washington, he told a journalist with some self-assurance: I found the course too slow.
23
I had the feeling that I had more to offer and so I sought a different route. But in fact he had been unlucky
in everything until now and so sought a way out. He contacted an American student exchange programme,
the International Christian Youth Exchange, which placed him with a guest family (the family of one of the
24
sons of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright) in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C. He attended
the Walter Johnson High School where he mainly followed art classes. One of his teachers was so impressed
with his talent for drawing that he arranged for Ader to have his own studio and also for him to exhibit at
Galerie Realit and the Capitol Hill Community for Fine Arts.
In 1961 instead of painting and drawing in isolation, as he had proposed to do, he travelled to Spain and
Morocco. From there he set sail for California at the beginning of 1962 with Neil Tucker Burcket on the latters
yacht Felicidad. After a journey of eleven months they arrived in California, in January 1963. Ader was reacquainted with Ger van Elk, who was studying art history at the Immaculate Heart College, where Ader also took
some classes. After passing some supplementary exams he was accepted at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles.
In 1965 he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts and then continued his studies at the Claremont Graduate School.
He seemed to have found his stride. In the same year he married his girlfriend Mary Sue Andersen in Las Vegas
and walked on crutches during the ceremony as a joke. Was this to signify that he had sustained an injury
whilst falling for Mary Sue?
In 1967 he gained his Master of Fine Arts with his project Implosion. Although the work was visually very distinct
from his later work, falling was already the central theme even if subsidiary themes such as spatial relationships also played a part. The presentation consisted of three components: two large constructions of wood,
linen and paint that almost entirely filled the exhibition space; six smaller works and a book with spreads
25
comprising stories or poems on one page and offsett lithographic drawings on the facing page. On the cover
in large letters is written: What does it mean? Cheep Cheep and above that in smaller letters, What Makes
me so pure, Almost holy? And more. Above the text is a self-portrait of Ader. Is this ironic self-canonisation?
The drawings were made in a loose figurative style, fashionable at the time. Stars and stripes suggest the
26
influence of Pop Art. In his masters thesis Ader described the exhibition as an environment. In it he wished to
investigate the meanings of fall and its complement rise, purely visually and formally as well as intrinsically
and thematically. He made the following subdivision: Rise and fall; Part and whole; Real and illusionary.
The categories for Rise and fall were:
1 Humpty Dumpty fall guy the egg suspended above the sky, and the use of the
bicycle before and after its unexplained misfortune.
2 Sue Falls table your feelings the congratulatory letter to the Eiffel Tower
and the leaning table, about to be sawed through, which contains this letter.
22. Rene Daalder, Here is always somewhere else, documentary film, VPRO, Hilversum

Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda in 1961.

2006.

25. Published by Claremont Colleges Printing Service, Claremont Graduate School and

23. Bob Nahuisen, Amerika bracht Basjan (19) uit Groningen onverwacht succes, Het

University Center Claremont, California 1967, edition of 100.

Vrije Volk, 26 July 1961, p. 9.

26. Aders masters thesis, 1967, Claremont Graduate University archive, Claremont,

24. Information from correspondence with Emil Hrebenach, who taught Ader at the

California.

Bas Jan Ader

15

3 Plan for a dangerous journey and Niagara Falls both pieces partly laid out
on the floor, but the canvas in Plan for a dangerous journey becoming sucked up in
the construction while the canvas in Niagara Falls spills out from it.
These are complex statements, with the same surreal tone as the texts (poems) in the book. Thematically the
works, such as Plan for a dangerous journey and Niagara Falls, share Aders later preoccupations. Visually the
works are quite different: paintings, objects, linen and paint become performances; films and photographs
are condensed (or is imploded a better term?) into handwritten statements.
The project also included a poster with a photograph of Ader sitting on a chair on the ridge of the roof of his
house in Claremont. He smokes a thick cigar. Behind him and to his right are painted clouds. It is a little
comic, like Pop Art. The title is The artist contemplating the forces of nature. Three years later, in 1970, this
contemplation would lead to his taking up position once again on his roof, seating himself in his chair and
then giving himself up to the forces of nature and falling, chair and all, from the roof. His first fall film. What
had happened since 1967 that his style should alter so radically?
The artist contemplating the forces of nature is a title that Ader took very seriously. After his masters he did not
immediately continue to make art, but decided to think about it and opted to study philosophy from 1967 to
1969. He fell under the influence of the German philosopher Georg Hegel (17701831), whose 1807 book The
phenomenology of mind Ader later took with him on his final voyage. Perhaps the riddle of his disappearance, if
this was intentional, lies hidden in this book. It is a complex discussion of the development from soul to mind
and discovery of the absolute and true knowledge with the aim of becoming at one with it, which corresponds
with the notion that that which someone attempts to know is actually himself, in which the I frees him from
his natural limitations and elevates him to the realms of the universal.
Is this comparable with his giving himself up to the forces of nature, to which Ader aspires in his fall works?
Perhaps it explains his mysterious descriptions of these works: Like gravity, the artists body makes itself its
own master. His sea voyage, which his brother characterised as the ultimate search for the metaphysical
was also a surrender to the elements. The insignificance he felt in relation to nature fascinated him. In an
undated text fragment he wrote: I really love Los Angeles. I love the surrounding wilderness of ocean, desert
and mountains. I feel belittled by its enormous scale, I value more than anyone the solitary beauty of the
Freeways by night. Even disasters, enormous bushfires and earthquakes have strengthened my attachment to
the city rather than chased me away. I must admit to being fascinated by the constant threat that nature has over
27
us here. I love this wild romantic metropolis of extremes. Could this feeling of insignificance and sense
of threat have lain at the basis of his mysterious performance Light vulnerable objects threatened by eight
cement bricks in 1970? Breezeblocks hang from ropes above vulnerable objects including eggs, light bulbs, a
boxed birthday cake and a portrait. Ader systematically cuts through each of the ropes with a Stanley knife,
flattening the objects below. Ader shares this sense of mans fragility in relation to the overwhelming
grandeur of the forces of nature with the German landscape painter and Hegels contemporary Caspar David
Friedrich (17741840). Some of Aders works are similar to those of Friedrich, even if they employ different
media. One such work is a colour photograph from 1971 in which Ader stands alone at sunset on a bay. The
composition clearly refers to Friedrichs work, but Ader intensifies the emotion with the text: Farewell to
faraway friends.

27. Text fragment by Bas Jan Ader, probably autumn 1974. See: Paul Andriesse, Bas Jan

Ader, een persoonlijke ontwikkeling, Jong Holland, vol. 2, no. 1, March 1986, pp. 20-21.

Bas Jan Ader

16

Hegel also discusses the limitations of language. This became a hot topic in the Conceptual Art of the 1960s,
in which language often had equal weight with the image or replaced it entirely. Between 1967 and 1970
Ader developed into a conceptual artist and immersed himself in the philosophical linguistics of Ludwig
Wittgenstein (1889-1951). Is there a relationship between Aders fall works and Wittgensteins opening proposition from the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus: Die Welt ist alles was der Fall ist (The world is everything
that is the case)? Aders interest in the many different meanings of the word fall was fed by many sources,
such as the 1957 play All that fall by Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) and another existentialist work La chute
(The fall) of 1956 by Albert Camus (1913-1960). That this latter book is set in Amsterdam possibly furnished
the inspiration to complete In search of the miraculous in the Dutch capital. And then there is the 1960s
Californian scene with its penchant for the occult and the cosmic. Ader was certainly no hippy, but he did
read the books of their favourite philosopher, the Russian mystic Petyr Demianovich Ouspensky (1878-1947),
possibly to test his metaphysical thought against that of Hegel. In any case the title In search of the miraculous
is borrowed from Ouspenskys book about his conversations with his guru Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff
28
(1872?-1949).
In 1969 Ader began to teach art history, bringing about a change in his work; his wife Mary Sue was also a
lecturer in art history. Ader now positioned himself in relation to other artists. He immersed himself in the work
of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and concluded that each conceptual art work should be an improvement on
29
Duchamp. It was typical of Aders ambitions for a new art that he believed that it should surpass Duchamp.
It is also a crying shame that he was unable to complete In search of the miraculous and that his experiments
30
with computers and dancers, on which he was working before his departure, remained at this stage. The
influence of Yves Klein (1928-62) is also unmistakeable in Aders work. In 1960 Klein launched himself from a
high wall and had his balletic flight captured in a photograph. It seems like a source of inspiration for Aders
fall works. Klein believed ultramarine to be the purest colour and produced monochrome works in his patented
International Klein Blue that represented infinity and the immaterial. This too spoke to Ader; mankind as an
insignificant being against the infinity of nature is a theme in his work that, he too, often gave an immaterial
and fleeting form.
Although he never used Kleins blue in his work he rarely worked with colour he wore blue in homage to
him. He even re-sprayed his cars blue, both the Mercedes that he bought with Mary Sue and the (originally red)
Porsche that he drove around Sunset Boulevard, where he had his studio, like a playboy. This was the period just
before his ocean crossing when he had several girlfriends and speculated in natural resources, often losing
31
large sums of money. His friend Ger van Elk is convinced that his risky journey in a small boat across the ocean
32
was connected with this desperate lifestyle. And indeed it cannot be denied that Ader sought danger and
gave himself over to it just as he gave himself over to gravity. With his sea voyage he put his fate in the
33
hands of the overwhelming forces of nature, possibly in a religious longing to be swallowed up by infinity.
28. P. D. Ouspensky, In search of the miraculous, New York 1949.

and have now leased out the Mercedes. In English this business is known as

29. Dalstar & Prigov, Vienna-Beha, Amsterdam 1998, p. 77.

commodities futures speculation. You buy, for example 100 tons of soybean against

30. Letter from Bas Jan Ader to Poul ter Hofstede, 20 augustus 1974 (Groninger

10-15% of your own money. If the price per pound rises by 50% you double your

Museum exhibitions archive, housed in the RHC Groninger Archieven, Groningen).

money. Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art

31. On 29 October 1972 Ader wrote to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van

History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague.

Ravesteijn: I have become fascinated by the beauty of speculating in grains and

32. Arjen Hoekstra, Het verlangen naar de zee als zienswijze, Zeilen, no. 10, October

metals etc. I have been occupied by this almost day and night for the last few weeks

2000.

Bas Jan Ader

17

Despite having settled in Los Angeles, Ader recognised his position within the Dutch tradition. In 1974 he
wrote the following: To begin at the beginning, I write these words in Dutch, my mother tongue, the language
34
of Rembrandt and Vermeer, Van Gogh and Mondrian. And on a postcard to Art & Project he wrote: I make
modest work. In the films I silently elucidate everything concerning falling. It is a great task, which demands
35
much difficult thought. It becomes poignant, which pleases me. I am a Dutch Master.
His work demonstrates a particular connection with the works of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). In 1971 he
staged several photo pieces and a film on a lane in Westkapelle, with its famous lighthouse in the background. This is a place loaded with art history. Around 1909, in his paintings of this lighthouse, Mondrian
had separated the primary colours for the first time and so had taken his first steps towards De Stijl and Neo
Plasticism. Ader satirises these first wobbly steps in a series of colour photographs. In the single image Pitfall
on the road to a new Neo Plasticism he falls to the ground carrying a blue blanket and various primary
coloured objects. In the sequence of four photographs On the road to a new Neo Plasticism he lies on the
ground in a position that approximates Mondrians harmony of vertical and horizontal lines. In stages, the
blue blanket appears beneath him like a canvas and then the coloured objects take their places around him.
Aders love of art-historical references resurfaces in a series of watercolours from 1974 whose title Piet niet
(literally Not Piet) refers to Salvador Dal (1904-1989) who, known for his dislike of Piet Mondrian, once
played a word association on his name until he arrived at the negative nomenclature Piet Niet. Another
Mondrian reference is the 21-part photo series Untitled (Flower work) from 1974 showing a vase containing a
mixed bouquet of red, yellow and blue flowers. In three separate sequences of seven photographs Ader adds
and removes flowers until the vase contains only flowers of a single colour.
More light-hearted is the sequence of six photographs from the performance Untitled (Tea party), 1972 in
which Ader is seen in a woodland clearing wearing a smart suit and tie. He crawls under a box, propped up
with a stick, where tea is laid out. When he has drunk his cup of tea, the stick is yanked away and Ader is
trapped under the box. There was more light relief in the 1970 installation, which comprised a compost heap
of earth and 473 copies of the magazine Readers Digest, with the literal title 473 Readers Digests digested.
This is similar to the visual world play of Sawing from 1971 in which Ader saws through the blade of a handsaw
with a circular saw.
During this period Ader also made much more powerful statements such as Nightfall, 1971, a film in which
he holds a heavy concrete paver in one hand and throws it, crushing an illuminated light bulb on the floor.
He repeats the process with the other hand, extinguishing a second light bulb: lights out, fin. This film is
amongst his best works: the bare, unadorned, seemingly negligent, almost casually made grimy black and
white fall films in which the tragic enacts its silent fate; or the photographs of heartrending statements
scrawled on blank white walls, each a cry for help that seems to have been directly inscribed on the retina.
In Germany in 1966 Jrg Immendorff painted Hrt auf zu malen! (literally Stop painting!); his peer Ader,
far away in California, drew the same conclusion and turned to photography and film. He was not alone.
This went hand in hand with the new forms of expression such as performances, Body Art and Land Art;
fleeting and immaterial forms that were captured and immortalised by photography and film, taking the
33. In the middle ages the highest form of pilgrimage was to go to sea in a small boat

35. Postcard from Bas Jan Ader to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn,

and give yourself over to the wind and the waves, thus placing yourself literally in

undated but probably December 1970, Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier),

Gods hands. Paul Andriesse, Bas Jan Ader: kunstenaar - artist, Amsterdam 1988, p. 63.

Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie

34. See note 27.

(RKD), The Hague.

Bas Jan Ader

18

place of the actual work of art. This was the heyday of Conceptual Art,
which in its purest form was expressed simply by means of a text or an idea
and did not require material visualisation. Ader also worked conceptually in
his installation/performance in the Mezzanine Art Gallery at the Nova
Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. From California he sent
instructions to the students on how to perform the work and received a
polaroid of the results in return. Thoughts unsaid, then forgotten from 1973
began with a vase of flowers on the floor in front of a wall bearing the
inscription: Thoughts unsaid, then forgotten, illuminated by a lamp. After
a few days the students repainted the wall, obliterating the text. The lamp remained lit for the remainder of
the week, at the end of which the flowers had withered. This decay and the text about forgetting gave the
installation the character of a vanitas work. Text installations are typical of the emphasis on language as a
visual medium within Conceptual Art. Ed Ruscha on the West Coast and Lawrence Weiner on the East Coast
are the most important exponents of this tendency.
Please dont leave me from 1969 was one of Aders first statement pieces. The first of two versions was presented
to several friends and colleagues in Aders studio. His statement pieces were usually presented a single time
and then dismantled and painted over. The only tangible evidence of their short-lived existence were the
photographs Ader made of them, which he published in very limited editions, or which he sent as postcards.
Ader never suggested that reconstructing the original work itself was a legitimate way of representing the work
and this also begs the question whether he saw them as installations at all, or as one-off events. In this respect it
is certainly with some irony that Ader once published carefully written instructions for a do-it-yourself36
happening in the magazine Landslide (1969-70) that he published together with his friend William Leavitt.
Ader received greater recognition in the early 1970s in the Netherlands than he did in California, albeit within
a relatively limited group of art aficionados around the Amsterdam-based gallery Art & Project. This gallery,
to which Ger van Elk introduced him, furnished him with a podium and his work began to be noticed. His
films were included in the travelling exhibition Film als beeldend medium (Film as an artistic medium)
organised by the now defunct Nederlandse Kunst Stichting (Dutch Arts Council). However, he was still to
make his international breakthrough; he was included in the Dutch manifestation Sonsbeek buiten de perken
(Beyond the limits) in 1971, but not in Harald Szeemanns Documenta 5 in 1972. However, the solo exhibition
at the Groninger Museum was on the books and Art & Project also secured him an exhibition in 1972 in
37
Bremerhaven, Germany. Here he delivered a second performance of The boy who fell over Niagara Falls the
38
first was at Art & Project a dramatic story that he read aloud from the magazine Readers Digest. At precisely
determined moments during the reading Ader sipped from a glass of water. The performance ended when
the glass was emptied.
Unlike Ger van Elk, who already had a considerable reputation and had participated in international exhibitions
and manifestations, Ader was still a relatively unknown figure within the Dutch avant-garde of the early
36. At least seven issues of Landslide were published in 1969 and 1970. The DIY

38. The first performance took place at Art & Project in Amsterdam from 15-21 April

happening entitled AAAARRGH was issued in 1970.

1972. Twice per day, at 2.00 pm and 5.00 pm, Ader read the story The boy who

37. In 1972 Ader was the first artist to exhibit at the Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst in

plunged over Niagara from the March 1972 edition of Readers Digest. It is the story

Bremerhaven. The director Jrgen Wesseler had seen Aders work at Art & Projects

of a boy who fell over Niagara Falls in a boat and survived.

stand at the Cologne Art Fair in 1972.

Bas Jan Ader

19

1970s. Neither did Aders work really fit within the ironising and general arsing around typical of the dynamic
Provo or Neo-Dada art of Wim T. Schippers and Willem de Ridder. His modest films are more closely akin to
the works of the Nul (Zero) group of artists Armando, Jan Hendrikse, Henk Peeters and Jan Schoonhoven
but even amongst them he would have to be considered a loner, the black sheep. Who at the time would have
tipped him as one of the most important artists of his generation? He was just one of many artists making short
films and for many people they were all much of a muchness. That he made them from a very different
philosophical background would be realised only much later; to the early 1970s Dutch mindset, films of
falling into a canal or hanging from a tree could only be, mistakenly, read as ironic. Now we know better.
His falls are of an existential nature, his surrender to gravity is philosophically underpinned and stems
from his personal experience. It is, as such, not simply an artistic statement, but an intrinsic and deeply
felt urge.
Alongside the historical and parallel developments within the visual arts that had an influence on Aders
development, there were also other important sources of inspiration. The motifs in several of Aders work seem
to have been lifted directly from the book his mother wrote about the war years, Een Groninger pastorie in de
39
storm (A Groninger parsonage in the storm). She tells of her life on the parsonage, which was a haven for those
hiding from the Nazis during the occupation, of how her husband was arrested, tortured and then executed,
but also about the infancy of her sons Bas Jan and Erik. The book a bestseller is the key to a better insight
into Aders work. The fall works are related to the fall of his father and to the fact that his mother wished
him to follow in his fathers footsteps, which in a certain sense he did with his impossible journey across the
ocean. But Ader was also influenced by his mother, her love of language, her interest in the spiritual and the
mystic and her preference for the colour blue.
On the very first page of her book, when she is on a train journey to eastern Groningen daydreaming about the
parsonage where she will live, she suddenly says: The kitchen must be blue. Yes, the kitchen must be blue.
Another remarkable passage describes her husbands state of unrest. When she asks what is wrong, he replies
quite simply that he wants to go away. Far away. Where? To Palestine, to Jerusalem. And he went. On his
40
bicycle, even though people thought him mad. Before departing he gave a concert on the church organ, as
his son would later have a student choir to sing before his mad journey. And when his father returned and
was depressed about what he had seen in Nazi Germany, he suggested that they immigrate to America. But
41
she didnt want to. Later, in one of his letters from prison he implored her again to flee to America. She did
not go, but her son did.
Untitled (Sweden), 1971 consists of two slides that Ader made in Sweden. In one Ader stands beside a tree, in
the other he lies on the ground. His father was shot dead in a forest and his mothers book reads: The trees
39. Johanna Adriana Ader-Appels, Een Groninger pastorie in de storm was first

afternoons, he sat at the office of the A.N.W.B. (The Dutch national tourist board).

published in 1945. The sixth edition (1974 published by T. Wever b.v. Franeker)

I want to got to Palestine, he suddenly told me one day. How will you get there?

includes a photograph of the young Bas Jan playing with his father. Mrs Aders

On my bike. He told me his plans with great enthusiasm. I could see half a year of

revenue from book sales was placed in a fund in memory of her husband and was

loneliness before me, but in any case it was wonderful that he dared to undertake

used in 1950 to establish an ecumenical community centre in Drieborg.

such a journey and he would succeed too even if people said that it was an

40. Idem, p. 336: ...What do you want then? I asked him. But the birds foreign

insane undertaking. Aders father left in 1937 and after visiting Jerusalem returned

migration seems to have entered his veins. I want to go away, far away, he said.

via Egypt to the Netherlands by cargo ship and train.

Where then? I dont know. Czechoslovakia or somewhere, but in any case far away.

41. Idem, p. 315: Should I not return, and should Europes prospects remain as dark

Maps were dug out, new maps were bought. Whole mornings, sometimes also whole

as they are now, go to America.

Bas Jan Ader

20

42

of the forest stood impassive like the pillars of a cathedral. And when she was
suddenly forced out of her home by the Nazis with barely time to pack anything
she threw as many clothes as possible outside to collect later. It is obvious that
Aders work All my clothes, 1970, in which he photographed all his clothes laid
out on the roof of his house in Claremont, is in some way related to this incident.
There are also countless references to falling and sailing. In the hymnbook that
Aders father was carrying when he was shot, the corner of a page was folded
down; the text read:
Valt hier op aarde
geen mus dan met Uw wille
Heer, dat mijn hart zich met de troost dan stille
Dat Uwe zorg ook mij bewaart.

If here on earth
No sparrow falls, then with Your will
Lord, my heart be comforted and still
That your hand protects me too.
And then the layered lines of his farewell poem:

t Is niet om mij: k heb fel en taai gestreden

Bij dag noch nacht begeerd naar rust:
k Heb in het lijden der gedoemden mee geleden,
en vaar nu heen naar verre, lichte kust

tis not because of me: I have fought with the best

By day nor night desired rest
I have suffered with the damned
43
And now sail to a bright and distant land.

This must certainly have influenced Ader, particularly because, whilst in California, he was translating his
mothers book into English. He saw his traumatic youth in front of him again. He never finished the translation
and the manuscript has been lost. His mother wrote in her book that when Ader realised that his father
would never return and feared that his mother too would disappear from his life, he asked: Mamma, ga je
44
niet weg?, which he could easily have translated as: Please, dont leave me.
Do these kinds of associations reduce the works to anecdotes or illustrations? No, they are too layered, too
complex for that. Ader managed to sublimate his personal tragedy into images with a universal appeal; and
furthermore it is not only their content but also their form that is so intriguing and so convincing.
Even if Ader is supposed once to have said about Im too sad to tell you that the face is the canvas and the
45
tears the paint, he did not wish his works to be regarded as Body Art. And he was right. He employed his
body as a means to an end and not as a means in itself. He was not a living sculpture but a conceptual artist.
The idea surpasses the form. Even though he committed himself physically, he pointed to an inherent significance that exceeds the merely physical appearance.
42. Idem, p. 330.

The baby sleeps audibly in the cradle. Everything belongs together. It is dear to me.

43. Idem, p. 332.

But that young man, for whom alongside other feelings I nurtured a deep motherly

44. Idem, p. 339: ...Mamma, please dont leave me. (Our constant moving had made

love, has left me. Forever? *Ader was known as Hans as a child.

Hans* fearful of this). No, my angel, Im staying with you. Forever? Yes, forever.

45. In one of Aders notebooks, quoted by Brad Spence in 1999, he wrote: I do not

Satisfied, the little chap nestles in my arms. I pull the blanket over us. Nothing

make body sculpture, body art or physical work. When I fall from the roof of my house

connects us to life more strongly than the helplessness of a small child. Paw comes

or in a canal it is because gravity makes itself master over me.

the little voice again. I take his foot in my hand. This is after all flesh of my flesh.

Bas Jan Ader

21

In what was to have been his masterpiece, In search of the miraculous, the physical setup he selected to link
America and Europe is similar in scale to a drawing that the American artist Walter de Maria was contemplating in 1969: a drawing that would start in India, continue in the Sahara Desert and finish in a desert in
46
America, and which would be visible only by satellite. In the light of such grandiose artistic concepts (this
is the period of the first lunar landing) Aders disappearance whilst executing his trilogy is, viewed soberly,
nothing more than an occupational hazard. It was the risk attached to the scale at which artists were then
working and comparable to the plane crash in which the American Land Art sculptor Robert Smithson died
47
whilst undertaking reconnaissance for a new location.
Ader and tragedy are indivisibly bound together. It would not be surprising if he were to return to Hollywood,
close to where he lived, as the subject of a real Hollywood movie. His life makes an exciting script. The father,
a preacher, who once cycled from Holland to Jerusalem and was shot dead as a resistance fighter. The mother
with telepathic powers who wrote a book full of references to falling and sailing. The brother, a successful
diplomat, who sailed around the world (but not alone) and came back in one piece. And Bas Jan Ader himself,
his dramatic childhood, his love of adventure and risky activities, which he managed to incorporate into his art,
and his disappearance at sea whilst carrying out a work of art.
Aders work is probably more autobiographical than was initially supposed and his mothers book is an important
source in this respect. That this information was not considered in earlier publications on Ader was not due
only to the lack of an English translation of her book. It was also because art history was long viewed from
within a strict, formal frame of reference. But art is not only about art, but also about life, and in this respect
there has been a clear change in the perception of Aders work in recent years.
Whilst in the early 1970s his work was discussed in formal, almost technical terms, there is now a greater concern
for the works tragic element. The first major publication on Ader, Paul Andriesses book published in 1988,
did deal with his mothers book and its possible connection with Aders work, but in a very aloof manner. The
German exhibition catalogue of 2000 by Christopher Mller certainly paid greater attention to this aspect.
And this is by no means restricted to publications, as is evinced from Aders recent inclusion in an exhibition
48
on the subject of grief. In the work of a new generation of artists whom Ader has inspired, the emphasis is
also placed on the tragic aspect of his life and work.
Does it demean Aders work that interpretations of his oeuvre focus on its tragic element and that his mothers
book is recognised as a source for certain images? Does this make his work anecdotal, illustrative or even flat?
Not everyone will be pleased with this development, but it looks as though his work can cope and that its
mysterious complexity will grow and not diminish. His works significance appears to be reaching beyond the
domain of art and even beyond Aders own intentions. His work seems to have become an icon for a particular
attitude to life and a particular time.
Of course the disappearance at sea speaks to the imagination, retrospectively puts everything into tragic per46. Walter de Maria, 1969: Three continent project consists of a mile-long bulldozer

Walter de Maria, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam 1984, p. 42.

cut in a desert east to west in India, a mile-long cut north to south in Africa, and a mile

47. Robert Smithson (1938-1973) died on 20 July 1973 in a plane crash whilst

square line cut north, south, east and west in the U.S.A. The lines would be photo-

researching locations for his work Amarillo Ramp.

graphed from a satellite and superimposed to create the image of a cross within a square.

48. Trauer, Passagen Atelier Augarten, Vienna 2003.

The north-south was made in the Sahara Desert, Algeria. Work in progress. Exhib. cat.

Bas Jan Ader

22

spective, overshadows his work and forms a compelling framework for its interpretation. In a certain sense
that is a shame, for it loses its original innocence and purity. But it cannot be left out of the picture. Just as it
is legitimate to set his work alongside that of his contemporaries and within an art-historical framework, so it
is equally legitimate to examine the sources that fed him and from which he drew.
There are clear narrative aspects to his work. He loved to teach because he loved to tell stories. But in this
respect, and from very early on, he sought the essence in things; images and statements that would surpass
the immediate pretext, the anecdote, and the temporary. Why else would he have studied philosophy? And
why does his most important work date from after this period?
Bas Jan Ader left behind a very small oeuvre, created within an equally brief period, between 1969 and 1975.
He managed to transform images that were heavily laden with personal significance into lucid statements
with universal appeal. This explains the ever-growing international interest in his work. And that is no coincidence, since Ader allotted himself an important role as an artist and set himself, like a modern Icarus, very
high goals. In an interview in the journal Avalanche in 1976 Mary Sue said: Bas Jan Ader believed that art was
in a transitional phase and he wanted to break through to the next stage. And Erik Ader said of his brother:
49
He wanted to look beyond the horizon.
Perhaps he discovered that the Earth is flat after all and simply fell over the edge.

49. Rene Daalder, Here is always somewhere else, Documentary film, VPRO, Hilversum

fragility of the undertaking, the cutting back of existence to the core: all this was part

2006. In a letter Erik Ader wrote: I surely do not see him as some nutty mystic. But

of the search for the essence, rising above banality, the ultimate search for the

what I am sure of is that he was always concerned with quality. Quality in art, the

metaphysical.

quality of existence. That entire sea voyage, the unsteady balance in that tiny boat, the

Bas Jan Ader

23

Curb your romanticism:

Bas Jan Aders slapstick
Jrg Heiser

Some of Bas Jan Aders most memorable works recall early slapstick comedy. Particularly in the silent films
in which we see him falling in one way or another, he employed the simple means of this earlier tradition
to reformulate and to some extent parody conceptual performance and its documentation, and the
Modernist abstraction it had grown out of. In Fall 1, Los Angeles, 1970, for example, we see the artist falling off
the roof of his single-storey house in Claremont; in Fall 2, Amsterdam, 1970, he loses control of his bicycle
and plunges into one of Amsterdams canals. In Nightfall, 1971, he throws a heavy concrete paving slab from each
hand in turn, smashing and extinguishing two illuminated light bulbs on the floor. Broken fall (geometric),
Westkapelle, Holland, 1971, shows the artist falling sideways onto a sawhorse and into the bushes on a path
leading to the Westkapelle lighthouse, which had been the subject of an early series of Mondrian paintings.
The act recalls the comedians classic visual gag of feigning drunkenness or trying to stand on an imaginary
ship; but it also refers to Mondrians rejection of the diagonal, which led to his falling out with his friend
and fellow De Stijl member Theo van Doesburg. Ader makes the reference to Mondrian whom he had
studied closely even more explicitly and comically in his series of photographs taken at the same spot, entitled
On the road to a new Neo Plasticism, Westkapelle, Holland, 1971, in which he is sprawled on the ground in a
black outfit mimicking the grid of a Mondrian painting with primary-coloured objects positioned around
him: a blue blanket, a warning triangle in its rectangular red plastic box, and a yellow petrol can.
The slapstick almost silly element is all the more remarkable because Ader has been mythologised as
the ultimate tragic artist because of his disappearance at sea while attempting a solo crossing of the Atlantic
for the central element of his uncompleted trilogy In search of the miraculous, 1975. And admittedly there is
nothing very humorous about the silent black and white film Im too sad to tell you, 1971 more melodrama
than slapstick in which we see the artist weeping, apparently so inconsolable with grief that he cannot even
tell us why. In fact, a preparatory note for the work reveals that Ader considered including the following line
1
in the film: The thoughts of our inevitable and separate deaths fills my heart with intolerable grief.

1. Christopher Mller, Bas Jan Ader. Filme, Fotografien, Projektionen, Videos und

Bonner Kunstverein and Kunstverein Mnchen, Cologne 2000, reproduction of note

Zeichnungen aus den Jahren 19671975, exhib. cat., Kunstverein Braunschweig,

book p. 24.

Bas Jan Ader

25

Of course there is a peculiar relationship between the tragic and the comic. Ader himself pointed out that
2
his concern with falling was connected to failure and tragedy. And seminal figures such as Charlie Chaplin
and Buster Keaton have always played on the tension between comic incident and tragic fate. In his book on
the artist, Jan Verwoert argues that Ader ultimately takes recourse to the classical Greek model of the tragic
3
hero who, takes the conscious decision to carry out a plan that will inevitably lead to his fall. He refers to
Aders silent film Broken fall (organic), Amsterdamse Bos, Holland, 1971, as a condensation of this paradigm: we
see the artist hanging from the branch of a tree until his strength fails him and he falls into the narrow ditch
beneath. In other words: the artist has knowingly put himself at risk by climbing up the tree and dangling
over the water.
The question remains whether there isnt a crucial difference between Aders act and that of the tragic hero.
For what we see is not really an existential threat, quite the opposite apart from maybe a bruised ankle, Ader
escapes unharmed. Interestingly, we do not see Ader clamber up the tree; the film starts with him hanging in
mid-air and ends with him crawling out of the ditch. Basically he has enacted the childrens game, which
appears, for example, in Maurice Sendaks famous picture book Where the wild things are published in 1963,
in which little Max, dressed in a wolfs suit, sails in a little boat to the island of monstrous creatures, tames
them by staring them down, is crowned their king, and proclaims that a wild rumpus shall begin which
climaxes in all the monsters merrily dangling from the trees.
Even though Bas Jan Aders more solitary act inevitably takes on a certain existential gravitas by being
isolated and captured on film, it nevertheless relies on the consoling knowledge that the artists life has never
actually been at risk. This is in stark contrast to the performances of Aders Los Angeles contemporary Chris
Burden who had himself shot in the arm (Shoot, 1971), or pushed live electric wires into his chest (Doorway
to Heaven, November 15, 1973). With regard to Aders fatal attempt to cross the Atlantic, it should be stressed
that his widow stated some months after his disappearance that Ader was convinced and had convinced
other sailors that he was sufficiently experienced and well equipped to make the crossing unharmed;
indeed Ader had already sailed from Morocco to Los Angeles in 1962, albeit in a larger boat and with ano4
ther crew member. Other works by Ader support the assumption that he was interested less in testing the
limits of his body i.e. putting it at risk than in what is, according to Alan Dale, author of the book Comedy
5
is a man in trouble, the essence of slapstick: a physical assault on, or collapse of, the heros dignity.
Nevertheless, Jan Verwoerts reference to the classical tragic hero helpfully leads us straight to the crucial issue of the relationship between intention, act and effect: the classical tragic hero acts purposefully and
forcefully, and ultimately sacrifices himself in order to enforce a resolution. The religious martyr does so for
the love of God, while the secular figure of the knight does so for the love of his country, or the lady he
courts. One strain of comedy since the Enlightenment from Don Quixote to Monty Python thrives on the
comic mishaps brought about by these worthy intentions. Another strain that of Chaplins slapstick for
example reverses this logic by relying on comic mishaps that inadvertently result in heroic deeds. In Chaplins
The tramp, 1915, the title character is charmed by the farmers daughter who has just escaped from a trio of
robbers. As he flirts awkwardly with her, he swings his ragbag containing a brick and, one by one, inadvertently
hits each of her assailants over the head. Increasingly aware of his unintentional bravery, he rises to the chal2. Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val, in Haagse Post

Los Angeles, May 28th, 1976, Avalanche, no. 13, summer 1976.

5. 1. 1972, quoted after Mller, op. cit., p. 60.

5. Alan Dale, Comedy is a Man in Trouble. Slapstick in American Movies, Minneapolis

3. Jan Verwoert, Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous, Cambridge, Mass., 2006.

and London, 2000, p. 3.

4. Lizy Bear and Willoughby Sharp, A telephone conversation with Mary Sue Ader,

Bas Jan Ader

26

lenge and bluffs until even the strongest of the three is sent packing in the belief that he has encountered an
undefeatable strongman. Another classic example of the accidental tragicomic hero is the famous scene in
Modern times from 1936, in which Chaplins character sees a red flag fall from a truck and picks it up.
He pursues the vehicle waving the red flag to catch the drivers attention, all the while unaware that he is involuntarily heading a march of angry, striking proletarians. Chaplins accidental revolutionary leader is eventually thrown in jail.
In Buster Keatons films, the comic effect is triggered by the seemingly insurmountable forces his character
faces. In Steamboat Bill Jr., 1928, Keaton is cast as the weakling Willie who inadvertently saves the day when a
cyclone and flood hit a small town. The film climaxes with the famous scene in which Keaton avoids certain
death when the facade of a house falls on him because he fits neatly through an open window frame; the British
artist Steve McQueen re-enacted the scene for his 1997 video Deadpan.
Bas Jan Ader turns the mishap itself into the ultimate and intentional performative act. On one level this
simply highlights, as Verwoert observes, the existential adversity of the everyday much in the vein of Chaplin
and Keatons slapstick. On another level, however, it is neither an existential heroic act nor simply its parody,
but precisely the short-circuiting of the two. While the classical tragic hero consciously decides to carry out
the task at all costs, the slapstick hero either quixotically fails to complete it, or inadvertently succeeds
through his hesitations and failures. Ader in turn accomplishes the comical act itself with the solemn purposefulness of a self-endangering act. While the conventional slapstick gag relies, according to Alan Dale,
6
on a rupture in the expected link between physical effort and result, Aders pieces make it very clear that
they are executed according to plan and that their outcome holds no surprise.
Aders gentle rejection of the confrontation between the heros dignity versus its parodist collapse can be
read closely in relation to his artistic peers in Los Angeles around 1970. While Chris Burden was the ultimate
hero of the risky performative act, John Baldessari was the ultimate parodist of heroics in video performances
such as I am making art, 1971, in which he performs a series of small mechanical movements exclaiming I am
making art in sardonic reference to the weighty significance attached to physical movement in much Body
Art and performance. Ader certainly didnt aim to discredit either of these artistic approaches (and might not
even have had them in mind when making his pieces), but he nevertheless bypassed both the heightened
sense of pathos and irony they represented.
Aders use of slapstick also resonates with the undertones of class difference typical of the genre. His 1967
poster piece Implosion / The artist contemplating the forces of nature shows a photograph of Ader sitting in
an armchair on the roof of his house (the same roof he will fall off in Fall 1, Los Angeles three years later),
smoking a cigar, against a background of an actual sky plus fake cartoon clouds. The artistic hero who is, in the
words of Lukacs, transcendentally homeless (i.e. sitting on the roof like a bird), is fused with the idle armchair
dandy: The artist as consumer of extreme comfort, 1968, is a photograph of Ader in front of a fire place that
illustrates precisely that snug role. The photo series Untitled (Tea party) of 1972 and the eponymous (but
unauthorised and posthumously released) film could have come straight from one of P.G. Wodehouses satirical stories, as the artist, wearing a suit and tie, crawls on all fours like a silly member of Bertie Woosters
Drone Club. He then drinks tea from a tea set placed under a large box, propped up with a wooden stick
like an animal trap, which eventually falls over him: the refined gentleman trapped in a Minimalist box.
But Aders enquiry into the bohemian bourgeois steers clear of overt comic effect there is no acrobatic
grotesqueness in his movements or facial expressions, quite the opposite: there is seriousness in his actions,
6. Alan Dale, op. cit., p. 4.

Bas Jan Ader

27

isolating and exposing the romanticist strain in the comical mishap as a means to isolate and expose the relation
between failure and empathy. In this respect, the slapstick works are intricately linked to, rather than separated from, Aders evocations of melodrama: both employ the genre traditions of an outmoded medium
silent film as a means to destabilise the (then relatively new) stereotype of the Conceptual artist as a stern
hero of critique who never embarrasses himself. But again, Ader is not simply a parodist. Rather, as a Dutch
artist based in Los Angeles, this chasm between romanticism and slapstick at the heart of his work echoes
the chasm between Europe and America: between the European school of thought leading from nineteenthcentury romanticism via Freud to auteur cinema the concept of psychological depth and singularity and
the American deadpan concern for repetition and social interaction that connects early slapstick with late
Modernism.
Of course the Atlantic can be crossed: there are strong auteur strands in American cinema (Welles,
Kubrick), and there are European slapstick comedians such as Karl Valentin and Jacques Tati. But these
cross-relations are actually triggered not least of all by the mutual relationship in the first place: for example, in
Tatis Jour de fte of 1947, a French village postman sees a news reel hailing the efficient mechanised delivery
methods of the US postal system, and the next day tries to compete using his bicycle (upon which he ends
7
up in the water ditto Ader).
Viewed against this background, Aders crossing the Atlantic as the central part of In search of the miraculous thus becomes not least of all an attempt to traverse the chasm of traditions. The tragedy is that his disappearance at sea was certainly not an intended kind of failure. For it seems that the miraculous that Ader
sought was the impossibility of being simultaneously the ultimate rationalist and the ultimate romanticist.

7. Jan Verwoert pointed out this parallel.

Bas Jan Ader

28

And he fell into the sea

Tacita Dean

But the young Icarus, overwhelmed by the thrill of flying,

did not heed his fathers warning, and flew too close to
the sun whereupon the wax in his wings melted and he fell
into the sea.
Simon Crowhurst, who was fifteen and at school in 1975, remembers the disappearance of Bas Jan Ader; he
remembers it very precisely because it was spoken about in connection with his own fathers disappearance
six years earlier. How his father had disappeared in the ocean was still a mystery to him. It was incomprehensible; alien even. It was a time when people, whole boats went missing in the Bermuda Triangle without rational explanation: strange algae consuming the oxygen from the sea and causing a vacuum in the air above.
Buoyancy was lost and everything became as lead. This was better than the truth, which he discovered only some
months later when he borrowed The strange last voyage of Donald Crowhurst from his school library, and his
fathers fraudulent journey and agonised death at sea was revealed to him. So Bas Jan Aders disappearance
confirmed only that his father was somehow not alone out there and that one day these unfathomable disappearances would have to be resolved.
With disappearance will always come the hope of reappearance. At the same school was the son of John
Stonehouse, the British Labour Member of Parliament who left a pile of his clothes on Miami beach in 1974 to
stage his own suicide. A minutes silence was held in the Commons and his obituary was published. Australian
detectives, acting on a tip-off that Lord Lucan had at last surfaced in Melbourne, inadvertently came across
Stonehouse living under an assumed name. He had reappeared.
The boys, Crowhurst and Stonehouse, were grouped together at school as many believed Donald Crowhurst
had also staged his own death and was living another life in a multitude of reported places. When Ader was
reported missing, he joined their fathers group. After all he was an artist, making a work of art. Everyone
believed he would reappear.
But Bas Jan Ader was not a man of stunts. He was making a work of art, but his work of art was not to disap-

Bas Jan Ader

29

pear. He wanted to cross the ocean alone, in answer to the journey that had brought him to California in the
first place. He had sailed there as a deckhand and wanted to sail back: to arrive and leave by sea a romantic
equation and obvious apotheosis. His audacity lay only in his desire (casual but nonetheless mindful) also to
break the world record by making the trip in the smallest ever boat: 2 feet and 2 inches smaller than the last
successful passage. Ocean Wave was probably not even double his bodys length.
Ader was a master of gravity. But when he fell, all he would say was that, it was because gravity made itself
master over him. He understood the necessary surrender and decisiveness of purpose needed to make gravity
his companion, unlike the prosaic James Honeycutt in The boy who fell over Niagara Falls, whose misjudgement of the supremacy of water left him trying desperately to reverse his ineffective outboard motor on the
brink of the Niagara Falls. It is a bad sailor who trusts his engine. Bas Jan Ader probably felt closer to the boy
whose very lightness would be his protector as he fell the 161 feet to certain death.
Did Ader feel protected because he was making a work of art? Protected in his pursuit of the sublime, which
suspends all truth and postpones the realisation that we are, in fact, dully mortal? More than anyone, he played
with this engagement laid himself open to the possibility of death. Taunted it. Provoked it. Fell for it. Sadly
we can only glimpse at the enormity of Bas Jan Aders feat because he failed. Had he completed his Part Two,
we would never think enough of what it takes to sail alone across the Atlantic in a boat barely bigger than most
sailors dinghies.
It is perhaps the most unsettling fact of all to learn that The strange last voyage of Donald Crowhurst was found
in Aders faculty locker in Irvine some time after he had disappeared. We have to suppose he read it. We have
to suppose he imagined Crowhursts anguished journey in the light of his own incipient one, even if it was only
to dismiss it. We have to suppose he knew, as he set out, that there were many ways to fail as there were many
ways to succeed.
Icarus, blinded by the elation of his ascent, failed and fell: fell to fail. His was a journey up that came down.
Crowhursts was a journey along: flat, doomed and sorrily human. His fall was wretched, unimagined, unannounced and wholly practical. But for Bas Jan Ader to fall was to make a work of art. Whatever we believe or
whatever we imagine, on a deep deep level, not to have fallen would have meant failure.

Bas Jan Ader

30

List of works

The works of Bas Jan Ader

Alexandra Blttler and Rein Wolfs

Cataloguing Bas Jan Aders small oeuvre is far from simple and requires careful navigation amongst various
pitfalls. Given that the artist is no longer with us, the question of authorisation is more than a little problematic
and naturally, the Estate plays an essential role in this respect. However, the matter is complicated by the
radical change in the composition of the Estates representatives since May 1993, with an attendant change in
how the oeuvre is viewed. That is a normal process. In the case of Bas Jan Ader the Estate was administered
from 1979 by the so-called Committee of Four Ger van Elk, Adriaan van Ravesteijn, Martijn Sanders and
Erik Ader. Initially the Estate was represented by Adriaan van Ravesteijn of Galerie Art & Project; from 1988
the Estate was represented by Paul Andriesse who had concluded his in-depth research into Aders work with
the first published monograph on the artist. In 1993 the committee and Andriesse were replaced by a new
representative for the Estate: the collection of Mary Sue Ader-Andersen Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy of
Patrick Painter Editions.
During the research into this list we have spoken frequently and corresponded extensively with Mary Sue
Ader-Andersen and Daniel Congdon, the Estates representative at Patrick Painter Editions. There was also
contact with Erik Ader. Doede Hardeman has consulted several archives during his research, including the
Sonsbeek archive, housed at the Krller-Mller Museum; the Groninger Museum exhibitions archive, housed
at The RHC Groninger Archieven and the Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier) at the Netherlands
Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD) in The Hague. The Art & Project
archive has yet to be catalogued and is still inaccessible to researchers; a sole exception has been made to make
the Bas Jan Ader dossier accessible exclusively for this publication. Otherwise the basis for the research has
remained the monograph on Ader by Paul Andriesse published in 1988 and the catalogue for the exhibition at
the Kunstverein Braunschweig in 2000 by Christopher Mller. An additional important source of information
was the article by Wade Saunders published in Art in America in February 2004.
Many individuals have also provided invaluable information including Poul ter Hofstede, the former curator
at the Groninger Museum; Gifford Myers, Aders former assistant; the filmmaker Rene Daalder; Wade
Saunders; Dennis Parks, a friend of Aders who ran the Upstairs Gallery; Steven Leiber; Jrgen Wesseler, the
director of the Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst in Bremerhaven; Helene Winer, curator of Aders exhibition at
the Pomona Gallery in Claremont and Ida Gianelli, the then director of the Saman Gallery in Genoa. Aders
works in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen were also re-examined and carefully studied.
The result is a new list of works, a list more extensive than any previous list of Aders works. This is partly on
account of the recently discovered juvenilia. These early works are quite distinct from the artists mature

Bas Jan Ader

32

work in terms of quality. Nonetheless we considered it important to include them here in order to facilitate
future research and to give a broader understanding of Aders development.
The list has also grown because the Estate has recently authorised more works. Some of these works raise
certain issues for discussion, and these are mentioned in the list that follows. Other works that have been
issued posthumously, have been arranged in a separate list of Posthumously published works. The film footage
that cannot be considered as authorised is dealt with in detail in Elbrig de Groots essay.
Since the artists disappearance, authorisation of Aders works has been the responsibility of Mary Sue AderAndersen, the representative of the Estate. Where the term authorised is used in the list, it refers to this form
of authorisation. In several cases the list mentions the completion of editions. Bas Jan Ader normally produced
three copies of his photo works. In some cases where less than three copies had been printed before his disappearance the Estate has chosen to print and publish the outstanding copies. This is in some cases referred to
as completing the edition. In his monograph published in 1988, Paul Andriesse chose to mention only those
prints that had been realised before Aders disappearance. A part of the editions were completed in the 1980s
under the auspices of the Committee of Four, with the agreement of Mary Sue Ader-Andersen and under the
supervision of Paul Andriesse (Wade Saunders, In dreams begin responsibilities, Art in America, February 2004,
pp. 54-65). In the following list we have chosen to give the original year of the work for these posthumously
completed editions.
The works have been arranged by medium. Within each medium the works are listed chronologically by the
date of their production. We have decided to place the most important body of works the photographs and
films at the head of the list in order to highlight their qualitative weight. In this respect the list of works is
also a definite attempt to create a critical ordering of the works.
In the list of works we have chosen to standardise the spelling of the artists name and the titles of the works.
Thus he is referred to here throughout as Bas Jan Ader or with the abbreviation BJA, and not Basjan or Bas
jan Ader spellings that were frequently adopted by himself and others. We have chosen to give all titles of
work in English because nearly all the works were made whilst he was living in America. Indeed, when Ader
was invited to participate in the Sonsbeek exhibition he explicitly referred to himself as an international
artist, not a Dutch one. In the titles of all works capital letters are used only for the principal word and for
proper nouns. Place names such as Westkapelle have been corrected where inaccurate or inconsistent
spellings were originally used and irregular punctuation has also been corrected. Consistent spelling was not
one of Aders strong points, a feature that we see no justification for idealising.
Dimensions are given in centimetres, using the international standard of height followed by width followed by
depth. Where the locations of works are known, the collection (or collections in the case of editions) is named.
Unfortunately this has not always been possible.
The descriptions of the works are based on a comparison of the available literature, our own observations and
the result of research carried out by Doede Hardeman. The two most important catalogues were consulted
extensively, and are referred to by the authors surnames and date of publication: Andriesse, 1988 for Paul
Andriesse, Bas Jan Ader: kunstenaar/artist, Amsterdam, 1988 and Mller, 2000 for Christopher Mller, Bas
Jan Ader, Filme, Fotografien, Projektionen, Videos und Zeichnungen aus den Jahren 1967-1975, Cologne, 2000).
Each description is supplemented with references to the literature and exhibitions until 1975, the year of Bas
Jan Aders disappearance.
The following list is in our opinion an important step in the research into the art of Bas Jan Ader. More research
will certainly be required, which can only help to clarify and strengthen our understanding of the work.

Bas Jan Ader

33

1. The artist as consumer of

extreme comfort
1968/2003 Gelatin silver print 33.7 x 48.3 cm Edition: 3
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: The photograph shows BJA seated on an armchair

next to an open fire, under a standard lamp, nodding off with
a book on his lap. BJA cups his chin in his right hand and
faces away from the viewer. At the foot of the chair lies a dog
looking towards the camera. The only light sources in this dark,
middle-class living room, are the standard lamp and the open
fire, spreading a warming glow over the artist, the dog and
the furniture.
Comments: In 1968 BJA made only one print, most likely for
financial reasons (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, conversation 25
February 2006). The Estate completed the edition in 2003.
Willoughby Sharp wrote about this photograph in his influential
magazine Avalanche (Willoughby Sharp, Rumbles, Avalanche,
winter 1971, p. 2) as early as 1971. According to Mller, there
are various negatives showing a similar motif, none of which he
believes was authorised by BJA (Mller, 2000). Neither does
Wade Saunders classify this photograph as an authorised work
(Wade Saunders, Art in America, February 2004, pp. 54-65).
The photograph was taken at Mary Sue Ader-Andersens family
house with their dog Lhoopie (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen,
correspondence 2 March 2006).
Literature: Willoughby Sharp, Rumbles, Avalanche, winter 1971, p. 2.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

34

35

2. Please dont leave me

1969 Gelatin silver print 28 x 35.5 cm Edition: 3
Collections: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3275 (MK)/Private collection Amsterdam.

Description: The picture shows an installation BJA made in his

studio in Claremont, California: painted on the wall is the text
PLEASE/DONT/LEAVE ME. In the foreground right there is
a ladder to which a lamp is attached, which illuminates the text.
A second authorised version is unique and shows the same
space with a bundle of illuminated light bulbs hung on the same
wall in front of the same text. There is no further light source
visible. This print is signed, dated and inscribed Studio
Installation on the verso. (Andriesse, 1988).
It is not clear if there are a total of three prints of the two versions of Please dont leave me (as stated in Andriesse, 1988) or
that there are in fact four because the version in the collection
of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (see illustration) is numbered 2/3 and that might also be a unique print of the other
authorised version. On the verso of the print in the collection
of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is the inscription: Please
dont leave me / 1969 (vintage) / 2/3. It is signed by Mary
Sue Ader-Andersen.
Comments: The authorised versions were clearly intended as
photo works in terms of composition and print quality (somewhat darker, with a dramatic effect). The print in the collection
of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has a small white border,
suggesting a carefully considered crop.
Besides the authorised photo works there are also documentary
prints that seem to emphasise the installation character of the
work. Compare cat. no. 26.
For a similar discussion of this work see: Wade Saunders, In
dreams begin responsibilities, Art in America, February 2004,
pp. 54-65.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

36

37

3. All my clothes
1970 Gelatin silver print 28 x 35.5 cm Edition: 3
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy
of Patrick Painter Editions / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3276 (MK) / Patrick Painter collection.

Description: As in Fall 1, Los Angeles (cat. no. 19) the roof of

BJAs home in Claremont, California, is shown from the front.
Spread across the roof, seemingly in a chaotic manner, are
various garments: suits, trousers, socks, neckties and a sailors
jacket.
Comments: As in Fall 1, Los Angeles the typically Californian
architecture functions as an important iconographic sign for the
site of the action, becoming an essential scenographic and compositional element. The artist allows us a glimpse of his life and
offers himself up, quite literally, naked.
The authorised print number 2/3 is in the collection of Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen. Another print bears the inscription
All my clothes Nov. 1970 on the verso (Andriesse, 1988). The
photograph was taken by BJA himself (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen,
correspondence 2 March 2006).

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

38

39

4. Im too sad to tell you

1970 Gelatin silver print 49 x 59 cm Edition: 3
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3277 (MK)/Private collection, Amsterdam.

Description: The photograph shows BJA struggling to hide his

sorrow; he cannot hold back his tears.
Comments: In this work BJA makes himself extremely vulnerable, certainly in a time when men were not expected to show
tears. Iconographically Im too sad to tell you refers to the subject of the suffering Christ.
Im too sad to tell you exists as a photograph, a film (cat. no. 21)
and a postcard (cat. no. 42). The first version was the postcard, bearing only the date and the inscription Im too sad to
tell you which BJA sent to friends.
One of the vintage prints of the authorised version is held in
the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (inscribed
with the title lower right in the artists hand).
A second print was sold to the Situation Gallery in 1973. The
print was shipped to England and is considered lost since the
gallery declared bankruptcy in the autumn of 1973. A third copy
bears the dedication on the verso: To Ger / Im too sad to tell
you, / Bas Jan Ader 70 and measures 26 x 35 cm. Unlike the
print in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
this print does not have the title on the front. The negative no
longer exists.
Mary Sue Ader-Andersen took this photograph. She is credited
as the photographer in: Willoughby Sharp, Rumbles, Avalanche,
winter 1971, p. 1.
Exhibitions: 11 March6 April 1973, Werken van Bas Jan Ader, Ger van Elk,
Gilbert & George en William Leavitt, Galerie Waalkens, Finsterwolde (inv.). (it
is not entirely clear whether the film or the photo work was shown at this
exhibition).
Literature: Willoughby Sharp, Rumbles, Avalanche, winter 1971, pp. 1-3.
Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val, Haagse Post,
5 January11 January 1972, pp. 48-49.
Rubin Gorewitz, For Artists Rights, Art Rite, vol. 2, no. 6, summer 1974, p. 12.
Erik Beenker, Bas Jan Ader op zoek naar het miraculeuze, Nieuwsblad van
het Noorden, 11 November, 1975.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

40

41

5. On the road to a new Neo Plasticism,

Westkapelle, Holland
1971 4 c-type prints(series) 30 x 30 cm each Edition: 3
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy
of Patrick Painter Editions / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3281 a-d (MK) / Private collection.

Description: Four colour photographs showing BJA dressed in

black lying on a brick-paved country lane bordered by shrubs
on each side. In the background is the Westkapelle lighthouse
in Zeeland. The first image shows BJA lying directly on the
road; in the three other images he is lying on top of a blue
blanket placed on the road. In the third image a yellow jerry
can appears alongside his left arm in the top left-hand corner
of the blanket. In the fourth image as well as the jerry can
there is an emergency triangle in its red cover next to BJAs
right shin.
Comments: Edition number 2/3 is in the collection of Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen. The photographs were taken by
Mary Sue Ader-Andersen (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence 2 March 2006).

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

42

43

6. Pitfall on the way to a new

Neo Plasticism, Westkapelle, Holland
1971 C-type print 40 x 29.5 cm Edition: 3
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy
of Patrick Painter Editions / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3278 (MK).

Description: This colour photograph shows the brick-paved

country lane leading to the Westkapelle lighthouse. The photograph shows BJA dressed in black falling to the ground in the
direction of the lighthouse. He is carrying a blue blanket over
his left arm and has dropped a yellow jerry can and an emergency
triangle in its red box. The fall has apparently been caused by
the uneven paving. The word road has been replaced with the
more figurative word way.
Comments: The verso of the print in the collection of Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen bears the felt-tip inscription: Bas
Jan Ader and in ink Pitfall on the way to a new Neo
Plasticism Westkapelle Holland 71 (reproduce only in color)
71. There is also a 6 x 6 cm colour slide with BJAs handwritten title in the bottom half. According to Andriesse this
slide was never projected (Andriesse, 1988). However, the slide
is mentioned in the catalogue of the exhibition at Pomona
College Gallery, Claremont, California in 1972. In a letter about
this exhibition Ader wrote: I showed 2 slides from Sweden
on a wall, the 3-coloured fall in W Kapelle (you havent seen it)
and 4 films. (Letter from Bas Jan Ader to Geert van Beijeren
and Adriaan van Ravesteijn, Art & Project archive (Bas Jan
Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague).
The photograph was taken by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen (Mary
Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence 2 March 2006).
In a letter addressed to BJA dated 10 April 1973, Geert van
Beijeren wrote: I would suggest that in particular you print
the work pitfall... a little larger (the dimensions are currently
40 x 29 cm), perhaps 60 x 45 cm? The current print of this
work is a bit wrinkled (broken fall is a much better print) and
should actually be reprinted anyway. Please let me know what
you think. (Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier),
Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague).
Exhibitions: 18 January20 February 1972, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt,
Ger van Elk, Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center, Claremont,
California (cat.).
Literature: Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery, Bas Jan Ader,
William Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, p. 1 and p. 4 and p. 6.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

44

45

7. Broken fall (geometric),

Westkapelle, Holland
1971 C-type print 40 x 29.5 cm Edition: 3
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy
of Patrick Painter Editions / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3280 (MK).

Description: The image shows BJA on a brick-paved country

lane bordered by shrubs on each side. In the background is
the Westkapelle lighthouse in Zeeland. The photograph has
been taken at the moment that BJA, facing the camera, falls to
his right against a blue-painted wooden sawhorse.
Comments: Prints 2/3 and 3/3 are in the Estate. Print 1/3 is in
the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and is inscribed in the verso in ink: Broken Fall (geometric) Westkapelle
Holland / Bas Jan Ader 71. There exists a 6 x 6 cm colour
slide with the title in Aders hand on the lower edge. The slide
has never been shown (Andriesse, 1988) and was never intended to be a stand-alone art work (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen,
conversation 25 February 2006).
Compare with the film Broken fall (geometric) Westkapelle,
Holland, 1971 (cat. no. 22), filmed from the same viewpoint.
The photograph was taken by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen (Mary
Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence 2 March 2006).
Literature: Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val,
Haagse Post, 5 January11 January 1972, p. 48.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

46

47

8. Broken fall (geometric;

blue-yellow-red), Westkapelle, Holland
1971 C-type print 27.6 x 28 cm Unique print
Collection: unknown.

Description: The image shows BJA on a brick-paved country

lane bordered by shrubs on each side. In the background is
the Westkapelle lighthouse in Zeeland. The image shows B J A ,
facing away from the camera, standing beside a blue-painted
wooden sawhorse.
Comments: This print is signed and inscribed with the title on
the lower section of the mat. BJA framed the photograph himself (Andriesse, 1988).
This is probably a unique print. The Estate does not own a copy,
but has a polaroid with BJAs cropping instructions (Daniel
Congdon, Patrick Painter Editions, correspondence 4 March
2006).
Compare with the film Broken fall (geometric) Westkapelle,
Holland, 1971 (cat. no. 22), filmed from the same viewpoint,
but with BJA facing the camera.
The photograph was taken by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen (Mary
Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence 2 March 2006).

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

48

49

9. Broken fall (organic),

Amsterdamse Bos, Holland
1971/1994 Gelatin silver print 46 x 63.5 cm Edition: 3
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy
of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: The image shows BJA falling from a tree. The

photograph was taken shortly after he lost his grip on the
tree branch. BJA hangs in mid air a few metres over a ditch,
his left arm raised and his right arm outstretched.
Comments: This is an authorised print re-produced by the Bas
Jan Ader Estate in 1994. The image was also used for the poster
of the exhibition in Bremerhaven (cat. no. 45). Print number 1/3
is signed.
Compare with the film with the same title (cat. no. 23) shot by
Peter Bakker. The photograph is a film still (Mary Sue AderAndersen, correspondence 2 March 2006).
For a discussion of this work see also: Wade Saunders, In
dreams begin responsibilities, Art in America, February 2004,
pp. 54-65.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

50

51

10. Untitled (Sweden)

1971 Projection of two colour slides
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: The work comprises two colour slide projections,

of identical dimensions, projected side by side. The two images
show almost identical views of a pine forest.
In the left-hand image BJA stands beside a tree, in the righthand image he lies stretched out beside the same tree; a few
felled trees lie alongside him. As such a sequence is suggested. In both slides BJAs position is identical to that of the
trees, erect and prone respectively. In the right-hand image he
simulates a felled tree; a touching depiction of the fall theme.
Comments: This work was made during a trip to Sweden,
where BJA also took the photograph for Farewell to faraway
friends (cat. no. 12). In 1972 BJA presented this work as a
slide projection in the exhibition Bas Jan Ader, William
Leavitt, Ger van Elk at the Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery
Art Center, Claremont, California. The film stills of Fall 1 and
Fall 2 were shown at the same exhibition. This emphasised
the thematic continuity.
According to Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, the work was originally
intended as a photo work. In 2003 the Estate published an
edition of three in the form of two c-type prints (Mary Sue
Ader-Andersen, conversation on 25 February 2006).
Erik Ader took the photographs (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen,
correspondence 2 March 2006, confirmed by Erik Ader).
Exhibitions: 18 January20 February 1972, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt,
Ger van Elk, Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center, Claremont,
California (cat.).
Literature: Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery, Bas Jan
Ader, William Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, p. 4.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

52

53

11. Untitled (The elements)

1971/1973/2003 C-type print 27.8 x 35.5 cm Edition: 3
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: BJA stands on a rocky coastline in Sweden with

his back to the roaring sea, holding a large placard bearing
the word FIRE.
Comments: In 2003 the Estate completed the edition. The slide,
from which the print was made, dates from 1971. The first print
was made in 1973. There also exists black-and-white film
material, showing BJA, fighting the wind, successively holding
up four placards inscribed with the words: WATER, EARTH,
AIR, and FIRE (153). This was rejected by BJA because of
excessive camera movement. BJA would have given the film
the title Daybreak (see text by Elbrig de Groot and Andriesse
1988, confirmed by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen (Mary Sue AderAndersen, conversation on 25 February 2006)).

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

54

55

12. Farewell to faraway friends

1971 C-type print 49.5 x 56.5 cm Edition: 3
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
Rotterdam , inv. no. 3279 (MK).

Description: The image shows BJA, viewed from behind,

silhouetted against a fjord on the Swedish coast. The sun sets
behind a promontory. The light is reflected in the water.
Comments: The romantic landscape with an artist contemplating
the sunset or the impressive scale of nature is a typical nineteenth-century image. It calls to mind Caspar David Friedrichs
work: Der Mnch am Meer (1809-10, Alte Nationalgalerie
Berlin). The vintage print number 1/3 is authorised and is in
the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
The photograph was taken in Sweden by Mary Sue AderAndersen (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence 2 March
2006). The location may have been Blid in Sweden.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

56

57

13. Sawing
1971 Gelatin silver print 28.2 x 35.5 cm Edition: 3
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy
of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: The image shows BJAs hands sawing through

the blade of a handsaw with an electric circular saw, thus producing sparks.
Comments: According to Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, who took
the photograph, the prints were authorised, but she believes
it was less important to BJA than the triptych of the same title
(cat. no. 14) (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, conversation on 25
February 2006). Opinions differ on this matter. Wade Saunders
in particular considers the single photo work as the only
authorised Sawing work (Wade Saunders, In dreams begin
responsibilities, Art in America, February 2004, pp. 54-65).
The verso of print number 1/3 bears the inscription: Sawing,
Jan. 71 (Mller, 2000). The negative used to make the print was
a still from the same reel as the films Please dont leave me
and All my clothes. This gives reason to believe that the image
was made as early as 1969 or 1970 (Andriesse, 1988).

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

58

59

14. Sawing
1971/2003 3 gelatin silver prints 12.7 x 17.9 cm each Edition: 3
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy
of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: The three images are placed side by side as a

triptych, showing three phases of the sawing process. The lefthand image shows the situation before the sawing begins (BJA
stands on the right), the central image shows the sawing activity itself and the right-hand image shows the situation afterwards (BJA stands on the right again). Compare with Sawing,
1971 (cat. no. 13).
Comments: In 2003 the Estate completed the edition. According
to Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, the triptych had been printed by
BJA and herself once before, in 1971. Andriesse still had his
doubts about the authorisation and he regarded the triptych as
a draft (Andriesse, 1988). Wade Saunders also argues that BJA
sanctioned only the single photograph and never intended to
have the triptych printed in this way. Saunders believes the triptych is too anecdotal in nature. (Wade Saunders, In dreams begin
responsibilities, Art in America, February 2004, pp.54-65).
The photographs were taken by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen.
She printed the photographs together with BJA. At first she
thought it was only a proof, but eventually she realised it was a
three-part work. We wouldnt have printed it if Bas Jan thought
it wasnt a work. He didnt waste his time on printing things
he was unsure of. (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence
2 March 2006).

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

60

61

15. Untitled (Tea party)

1972 6 c-type prints 12.5 x 20 cm each / in a single frame
88 x 22 cm Edition: 3
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
Rotterdam, inv. no. 3282 (MK).

Description: The work comprises six color photographs. Ader

crawls through a woodland clearing in a suit and tie towards a
large cardboard box propped up by a stick, under which a tea
service is laid out. At the moment that he takes a sip of tea the
stick is yanked away, trapping BJA under the box.
Comments: The images have a similar romantic feeling to
Farewell to faraway friends, at least as far as the environment is
concerned. The motif calls to mind Edouard Manets painting
Djeuner sur lherbe of 1863. The work is often referred to as
Tea party. The versos of all six prints of the copy in Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen are numbered 1-6 and bear the
inscription: Untitled, Bas Jan Ader, 1/3, 72.
There also exists film material (see text by Elbrig de Groot).
Exhibitions: 11 March6 April 1973, Werken van Bas Jan Ader, Ger van Elk,
Gilbert & George en William Leavitt, Galerie Waalkens, Finsterwolde (inv.).

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

62

63

16. In search of the miraculous

(One night in Los Angeles)
1973 14 gelatin silver prints with hand-written text in white ink
27.5 x 34.5 each
Collection: Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN),
on long-term loan to the Krller-Mller Museum, Otterlo.

Description: Fourteen images show BJA in Los Angeles by night

with the lyrics of the 1957 song Searchin by the Coasters.
During a single night BJA walks through Los Angeles towards
the Pacific Ocean. In the final image he reaches the ocean in
time for the sunrise. BJA wrote in white ink on the photographs,
numbered one to fourteen: [1] yeh Ive been searchin ah ah
searchin / [2] oh yeh searchin every which way / [3] oh yeh
Searchin ah ah searchin / [4] searchin every which way / [5]
but Im like that North West mountie / [6] you know Ill bring
her in someday / [7] Well now if I have to swim a river you
know I will / [8] and if I have to climb a mountain you know
I will / [9] and if shes hiding up on Blueberry Hill / [10] am I
gonna find her child you know I will / [11] cause Ive been
searchin oh yeh searchin / [12] my goodness searchin every
which way / [13] but Im like that North West mountie / [14]
you know Ill bring her in someday..
The original lyrics by the Coasters are as follows: Yeh, Ive
been searchin / Ive been searchin / Oh yeh, Searchin everywhich way / Oh yeh, Searchin / Im searchin / Searchin everywhich way / but Im like that Northwest Mounty / you know Ill
bring her home someday / Gonna find her / Gonna find her /

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

64

Well now if I have to swim a river / you know I will / and if I have
to climb a mountain / you know I will / and if she is hiding up on
blueberry hill / am I gonna find her child / you know I will cause
Ive been searchin / Oh yeh searchin my goodness / searchin
everywhich way, but Im like that / Northwest Mounty / you know
Ill bring her in someday.
Comments: The negatives no longer exist. In addition to this
edition there is a series of eighteen photographs (cat. no. 17).
According to Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, the less extensive
series was due to lack of funds. (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen,
conversation on 25 February 2006).
The photographs were taken by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen in
Los Angeles from nightfall to sunrise. (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen,
correspondence 2 March 2006).
It is remarkable the extent to which the two series differ: the
series of eighteen photographs has a very different sequence;
identical photographs from each series have different lyrics;
and finally some words in the two series have been spelt in
different ways (compare mountie/mounty, the inconsistent use
of apostrophes and the inconsistent use of upper and lower
case). The handwriting, however, is the same.
The work was to be part of a trilogy BJA was working on, but
never completed (cat. no. 33).
Literature: Hannelore Ahorn, Kunstwerk ist Vorgang. Fotos des Amerikaners
Bas Jan Ader beim Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven,
14 November, 1974.
Henry J. Seldis and William Wilson, A Critical Guide to the GALLERIES, Los
Angeles Times, 2 May, 1975, p. 8.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

65

66

67

17. In search of the miraculous

(One night in Los Angeles)
1973 18 gelatin silver prints with hand-written text in white ink
20.3 x 25.4 cm each, 76.2 x 190.5 cm in frame
Collection: Philip E. Aarons, New York.

Description: Eighteen images show BJA in Los Angeles by night

with the lyrics of the 1957 song Searchin by the Coasters.
During a single night BJA walks through Los Angeles towards
the Pacific Ocean. In the final image he reaches the ocean in
time for the sunrise. BJA wrote in white ink on the photographs,
numbered one to eighteen: [1] yeh Ive been searchin / [2] Ive
been searchin / [3] Oh yeh, Searchin everywhich way / [4] Oh
yeh, Searchin / [5] Im searchin / [6] Searchin everywhich way
/ [7] but Im like that Northwest Mounty / [8] you know Ill bring
her home someday / [9] Gonna find her / [10] Gonna find her /
[11] Well now if I have to swim a river you know I will / [12] and
if I have to climb a mountain you know I will / [13] and if she is
hiding up on blueberry hill / [14] am I gonna find her child /
[15] you know I will cause Ive been searchin / [16] Oh yeh
searchin my goodness / [17] searchin everywhich way, but Im
like that Northwest Mounty / [18] you know Ill bring her in
someday. Compare with the original lyrics of the Coasters
song cat. no. 16.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

68

Comments: The negatives no longer exist. In addition to this

edition there is a series of fourteen photographs (cat. no. 16).
According to Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, the less extensive series
was due to lack of funds. (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, conversation on 25 February 2006).
The photographs were taken by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen in Los
Angeles from nightfall to sunrise. (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen,
correspondence 2 March 2006).
It is remarkable the extent to which the two series differ: the
series of fourteen photographs has a very different sequence;
identical photographs from each series have different lyrics;
and finally some words in the two series have been spelt in
different ways (compare mountie/ mounty, the inconsistent
use of apostrophes and the inconsistent use of upper and
lower case). The handwriting, however, is the same.
The work was to be part of a trilogy BJA was working on, but
never completed (cat. no. 33).
Exhibitions: 9 November8 December 1974, Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the
Miraculous, Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
6 March5 April 1975, Bas Jan Ader, Saman Gallery, Genoa (inv.).
22 April17 May 1975, Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the Miraculous, Claire S.
Copley Gallery, Los Angeles (inv. and bulletin).
Literature: Hannelore Ahorn, Kunstwerk ist Vorgang. Fotos des Amerikaners
Bas Jan Ader beim Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven,
14 November, 1974.
Henry J. Seldis and William Wilson, A Critical Guide to the GALLERIES, Los
Angeles Times, 2 May, 1975, p. 8.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

69

70

71

18. Untitled (Flower work)

1974 21 c-type prints 27.5 x 36 cm each /
in 3 frames of 29 x 252.5 cm each Edition: 3
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy
of Patrick Painter Editions / Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage,
on long-term loan to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam,
BRL 93-01 (MK) No. 2/3 / Private collection.

Description: The work comprises three sections, each containing

seven images in one frame. BJAs torso, dressed in black, is
seen behind a vase containing flowers in the three primary
colours: red, yellow and blue. In the first sequence, BJA removes
all the non-red flowers from the bouquet until only red flowers
remain. In the second sequence he adds yellow and blue flowers
to the red ones and then removes all but the yellow flowers.
In the third sequence he repeats the process until he has an
exclusively blue bouquet.
The camera position in these images is the same for the video
with the same title (cat. no. 25).
Comments: Edition number 2/3 is on loan from the Netherlands
Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN) to Museum Boijmans Van
Beuningen. The prints are numbered 1-21 on the verso. The
final print is signed and dated on the front, and on the verso
bears the inscription: Bas Jan Ader, Edition 3 no. 2, Untitled
1974, A work consisting of 21 photographs.
In a letter from BJA to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van
Ravesteijn, date unknown, probably May/June 1975, he described the work as: a new work about Mondrian. Art & Project
archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art
History/Rijksbureau

voor

Kunsthistorische

Documentatie

(RKD), The Hague.

Exhibitions: 6 March5 April 1975, Bas Jan Ader, Saman Gallery,
Genoa (inv.).
Literature: Germano Beringheli, Fiori a Mondrian, Il Lavoro, 11
March, 1975.

Bas Jan Ader / Photographs

72

73

19. Fall 1, Los Angeles

1970 Black and white film 16mm silent Total duration: 24
(title 6, film 18), Camera: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. FKI 45 (MK) /
one copy belongs to the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN).

Description:
(in block letters)
BAS JAN ADER
FALL 1
LOS ANGELES 1970
Duration: 6
The camera is fixed on the facade of BJAs house in Claremont,
California, showing the roof and veranda. BJA is seated on a
chair on the roof ridge. He falls and rolls, chair and all, off the
roof. One of his shoes comes loose. The chair falls to the left and
comes to a standstill on the roof. BJA lands in the bushes in
front of the house, out of view.
Duration: 18
Comments: There are a number of screen tests in which BJA
drops the chair off the roof several times, whilst William Leavitt
took photographs that appear never to have been used.
For the book Fall (cat. no. 43) BJA used film stills from Fall 1
and Fall 2, which he included in his exhibition in Claremont in
1972.
Exhibitions: 19 June15 August 1971, Sonsbeek buiten de perken, in the film
tent in the garden of the Gemeentemuseum Arnhem, Arnhem (cat.).
Filmprogramma van Sonsbeek 71, Vestzaktheater, Groningen.
8 October17 October, Prospekt 71: Projektion, Stdtische Kunsthalle,
Dsseldorf (cat.).
17 June2 July 1972, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic), Kabinett fr
Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
19 November 1974 , Film als beeldend medium, travelling exhibition
Nederlandse Kunststichting.
Literature: Cor Blok, Gaat Sonsbeek buiten de perken?, Museumjournaal vol. 16,
no. 4, 1971, p. 174.
Peter Kress, Aktiviteit Sonsbeek buiten de perken, Das Kunstwerk, 5 XXIV,
September 1971, p. 77.
Willoughby Sharp, Rumbles, Avalanche, winter 1971, p. 2.
Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val, Haagse Post, 5
January11 January 1972, p. 48.
Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery, Bas Jan Ader, William
Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, p. 1.
William Wilson, Photo-Sculpture Show at Otis, Los Angeles Times, 14 February,
1972, p. 8.
Hannelore Ahorn, Es geht Bas Jan Ader nicht um das Filmen. Hollnder
prsentiert sich im ,,Kabinett fr aktuelle Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven,
20 June, 1972.
Exhib.cat. various venues, Nederlandse Kunststichting, Film als beeldend medium, 1974, p. 8 and p. 32.
Benjamin H.D. Buchloh (ed.), Filmographie von Knstlerfilmen, Interfunktionen,
no. 12, Cologne 1975, p. 85.
Erik Beenker, Bas Jan Ader op zoek naar het miraculeuze, Nieuwsblad van het
Noorden, 11 November, 1975.

Bas Jan Ader / Films

74

75

20. Fall 2, Amsterdam

1970 Black and white film 16mm, silent Total duration: 19
(title 6, film 13), Camera: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. FKI 46 (MK)/
one copy belongs to the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN).

Description:
(in block letters)
BAS JAN ADER
FALL 2
AMSTERDAM 1970
Duration: 6
BJA appears from a side street on a bicycle and cycles along
the Reguliersgracht in Amsterdam. The static camera records
his progress from the other side of the canal. B J A grips a bunch
of flowers in one hand. He steers straight towards the canal
and plunges into the water, bike and all. The saddle cover
springs up on impact.
Duration: 13
Comments: There are several screen tests showing the location with pedestrians and traffic. In the definitive shot only
B J A is in view. Another scene shows B J A being fished out of
the water at the end of a rope.
Ger van Elk and William Leavitt were on site to take photographs.
For the book Fall (cat. no. 43) B J A used film stills from Fall 1
and Fall 2, which he included in his exhibition in Claremont in
1972.
Exhibitions: 19 June15 August 1971, Sonsbeek buiten de perken, in the
film tent in the garden of the Arnhem Gemeentemuseum, Arnhem (cat.).
Filmprogramma van Sonsbeek 71, Vestzaktheater, Groningen.
8 October17 October, Prospekt 71: Projektion, Stdtische Kunsthalle,
Dsseldorf (cat.).
17 June2 July 1972, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic), Kabinett fr
Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
19 November 1974 , Film als beeldend medium, travelling exhibition
Nederlandse Kunststichting.
Literature: Peter Kress, Aktiviteit Sonsbeek buiten de perken, Das Kunstwerk,
5 XXIV, September 1971, p. 77.
Willoughby Sharp, Rumbles, Avalanche, winter 1971, p. 2.
Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val, Haagse Post,
5 January11 January 1972, p. 48.
Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery, Bas Jan Ader, William
Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, p. 1.
William Wilson, Photo-Sculpture Show at Otis, Los Angeles Times, 14 February,
1972, p. 8.
Hannelore Ahorn, Es geht Bas Jan Ader nicht um das Filmen. Hollnder prsentiert sich im ,,Kabinett fr aktuelle Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven, 20
June, 1972.
Exhib.cat. various venues, Nederlandse Kunststichting, Film als beeldend medium,
1974, p. 8 and p. 32.
Benjamin H.D. Buchloh (ed.), Filmographie von Knstlerfilmen, Interfunktionen,
no. 12, Cologne 1975, p. 85.
Erik Beenker, Bas Jan Ader op zoek naar het miraculeuze, Nieuwsblad van het
Noorden, 11 November, 1975.

Bas Jan Ader / Films

76

77

21. Im too sad to tell you

1971 Black and white film 16mm, silent Total duration: 334
(titles 16, film 318), Camera: Peter Bakker
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. FKI 48 /
one copy belongs to the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN).

Description:
Bas Jan Ader
71
Duration: 6
Im too sad
To tell you
Duration: 10
BJA is filmed frontally. His face, full of emotion, fills the screen.
He pulls his hair and rubs his face. He snivels and tears show.
He opens his mouth, rubs his eyes, lifts his head, blinks his eyes,
grins, bends his head, curls his lip inward, bursts into tears,
regains control, moves his tongue over his lips, keeps his
head still, bends his head again, cant hold back his tears,
turns his head to the left, shakes his head, curls his lip inward,
puts a hand on his face and flicks his hair out of the way, nods,
keeps his eyes closed and bursts into tears again.
Duration: 318
Comments: BJA made three different versions of Im too sad to
tell you. One American version, with BJA sitting in front of a fence
(Cry Claremont, 1970) and two versions in Amsterdam, shot in
a neutral space (1971). Compare the text by Elbrig de Groot.
Exhibitions: 4 April24 April 1971, Studio show, together with Paul Drake,
Ger van Elk, Jack Goldstein, William Leavitt, Allen Ruppersberg, Stephen Sher,
Wolfgang Stoerchle, the exhibition took place in a loft of Jack Goldstein, Los
Angeles. Presumably it was the first version Cry Claremont that was shown
here (for a discussion of the various see the text by Elbrig de Groot).
18 January20 February 1972, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Ger van Elk,
Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center, Claremont, California (cat.).
4 June 21 July 1972, listahtd reykjavk, Galerie Sm, Reykyavik (cat.).
17 June2 July 1972, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic), Kabinett fr
Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
11 March6 April 1973, Werken van Bas Jan Ader, Ger van Elk, Gilbert &
George en William Leavitt, Galerie Waalkens, Finsterwolde (inv.). (It is not
entirely clear whether the film or the photo work was shown at this exhibition).
19 November 1974 , Film als beeldend medium, travelling exhibition
Nederlandse Kunststichting.
Literature: Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val,
Haagse Post, 5 January11 January 1972, pp. 48-49.
Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery, Bas Jan Ader, William
Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, p. 1 and pp. 4-5.
Exhib.cat. Reykjavik, Galerie Sm, listahtd reykjavk, 1972, p. 1 and p. 119.
Hannelore Ahorn, Es geht Bas Jan Ader nicht um das Filmen. Hollnder prsentiert sich im ,,Kabinett fr aktuelle Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven,
20 June, 1972.
H.A. (Hannelore Ahorn), Elementare Erfahrungen. Bas Jan Ader im Kabinett
fr aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven, Bremer Nachrichten, 28 June, 1972.
Exhib.cat. various places, Nederlandse Kunststichting, Film als beeldend medium,
1974, p. 9 and p. 32.
Erik Beenker, Bas Jan Ader op zoek naar het miraculeuze, Nieuwsblad van het
Noorden, 11 November, 1975.

Bas Jan Ader / Films

78

79

22. Broken fall (geometric),

Westkapelle, Holland
1971 Black and white film 16mm, silent Total duration: 1 49
(titles 17, film 132), Camera: Peter Bakker
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. FKI 49 (MK)
.

Description:
(hand-written)
Bas Jan Ader
71
Duration: 6
Broken Fall
(geometric)
West-Kapelle, Holland
Duration: 11
BJA is standing on a brick-paved country lane bordered by
shrubs on each side, next to a wooden sawhorse. In the background is the Westkapelle lighthouse in Zeeland. BJA staggers
for a moment and falls sideways against the sawhorse and onto
the ground at the side of the road. His hands continue to move
for a while.
Duration 132
Comments: Both the location and the subject refer to Piet
Mondrian, an artist that fascinated BJA. Mondrian painted the
lighthouse on several occasions. The lighthouse and the sawhorse
represent Mondrians disagreement with Theo van Doesburg
over his controversial use of the diagonal line; Mondrian
sought a perfect harmony of horizontals and verticals only.
BJA attempts to intervene in this theoretical conflict, but fails
whilst trying to replicate the angle of the sawhorse. At the
same location but at a different time, Mary Sue Ader-Andersen
took photographs for various Westkapelle photo works. Ger
van Elk also took photographs at Westkapelle (conversation
with Ger van Elk, 13 March 2006). There are many screen tests
for this film. In one piece of footage a car appears, spoiling the
shot, much to BJAs annoyance.
Exhibitions: 18 January20 February 1972, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Ger van
Elk, Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center, Claremont, California (cat.).
17 June2 July 1972, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic), Kabinett fr Aktuelle
Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
Literature: Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val,
Haagse Post, 5 January11 January 1972, p. 48.
Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery, Bas Jan Ader, William
Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, p. 1 and p. 4.
Hannelore Ahorn, Es geht Bas Jan Ader nicht um das Filmen. Hollnder prsentiert sich im ,,Kabinett fr aktuelle Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven,
20 June, 1972.
H.A. (Hannelore Ahorn), Elementare Erfahrungen. Bas Jan Ader im Kabinett fr
aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven, Bremer Nachrichten, 28 June, 1972.
Exhib.cat. various places, Nederlandse Kunststichting, Film als beeldend medium,
1974, p. 32.

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23. Broken fall (organic),

Amsterdamse Bos, Holland
1971 Black and white film 16mm - silent Total duration: 144
(titles 18 film 126), Camera: Peter Bakker
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, FKI 50 (MK).

Description:
(hand-written)
Bas Jan Ader
71
Duration: 7
Broken Fall
(organic)
Amsterdamse Bos, Holland
Duration: 11
BJA dangles from a tree branch, several metres above a ditch.
He swings, repositions his hands, spreads his legs, hangs still,
kicks his legs, loses his grip until and falls into the water,
close to the bank.
Duration: 126
Comments: BJAs original intention was also to publish this work
as a photographic print, as in the poster for the Kabinett fr
Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (cat. no. 45) (Andriesse, 1988). A
crop of the image was used for the exhibition invitation.
Footage exists, probably shot in California, in which BJA - nimbly
climbs a tree and roughly shakes the foliage.
Exhibitions: 18 January20 February 1972, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Ger
van Elk, Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center, Claremont, California
(cat.).
17 June2 July 1972, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic), Kabinett fr Aktuelle
Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
Literature: Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val,
Haagse Post, 5 January11 January 1972, p. 48.
Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery, Bas Jan Ader, William
Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, p. 1 and pp. 4-5.
William Wilson, Photo-Sculpture Show at Otis, Los Angeles Times, 14 February,
1972, p. 8.
Hannelore Ahorn, Es geht Bas Jan Ader nicht um das Filmen. Hollnder prsentiert sich im ,,Kabinett fr aktuelle Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven,
20 June, 1972.
H.A. (Hannelore Ahorn), Elementare Erfahrungen. Bas Jan Ader im Kabinett fr
aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven, Bremer Nachrichten, 28 June, 1972.
Exhib.cat. various venues, Nederlandse Kunststichting, Film als beeldend medium,
1974, p. 32.

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24. Nightfall
1971 Black and white film 16mm, silent Total duration: 416
(title 8, film 48), Camera: Peter Bakker
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. FKI 47 (MK).

Description:
(in block letters)
BAS JAN ADER
NIGHTFALL
1971
Duration: 8
BJA stands in a garage behind a concrete paving slab. On the
floor to his left and right are illuminated light bulbs. The camera
records BJA frontally from a fixed position. After approximately one minute BJA picks up the heavy concrete slab and raises
it onto his left shoulder. He then shifts the block onto his left
palm and holds it like a serving tray. All of this is accomplished
with great difficulty due to the weight of the slab. He throws
the slab onto the light bulb on his left, smashing and extinguishing it. He remains standing in the middle for a while,
picks up the slab again and repeats the entire process on his
right-hand side. As the second light bulb is extinguished the
scene turns black.
Duration: 48
Exhibitions: 18 January20 February 1972, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Ger
van Elk, Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center, Claremont, California
(cat.).
17 June2 July 1972, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic), Kabinett fr Aktuelle
Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
Literature: Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val,
Haagse Post, 5 January11 January 1972, p. 49.
Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery, Bas Jan Ader, William
Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, p. 4.
Hannelore Ahorn, Es geht Bas Jan Ader nicht um das Filmen. Hollnder prsentiert sich im ,,Kabinett fr aktuelle Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven,
20 June, 1972.
H.A. (Hannelore Ahorn), Elementare Erfahrungen. Bas Jan Ader im Kabinett fr
aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven, Bremer Nachrichten, 28 June, 1972.
Exhib.cat. various venues, Nederlandse Kunststichting, Film als beeldend medium, 1974, p. 32.

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85

25. Primary time

1974 Video in colour, silent U-Matic Duration: 26 minutes
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam, inv. no. VKI 90 (MK).

Description:
(hand-written)
Primary Time
Bas jan Ader 74
The video begins with only a vase holding a bouquet of red,
yellow and blue carnations. After a few seconds BJA appears
and stands behind the vase of flowers. He adds and removes
flowers until he has arranged, in turn, an exclusively red, then
yellow and finally a blue bouquet. Between arranging each
monochrome bouquet he disappears briefly. Unlike the photo
series, which ends with the monochrome blue bouquet, the
video returns to the three-coloured bouquet.
Comments: The video was shot at Irvine University. In addition
to the video work there is also a series of 21 c-type prints (cat.
no. 18).

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26. Please dont leave me

1969 Installation Documented by various photographs (collection of
Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions).

Description: BJA produced two versions of this studio installation in his studio in Claremont, California. In one version a lamp
attached to a ladder illuminated the text PLEASE DONT
LEAVE ME written in dark paint on the back wall. This installation was the basis for the photo work, a copy of which is in
the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (cat. no. 2).
In the second version a tangle of light bulbs was attached to
the same wall, brightly illuminating the text. There were no other
artificial light sources. There is an authorised photo work of
this version, signed, dated and inscribed Studio Installation
on the verso. There are also documentary photographs of this
installation.
Documentary photographs also exist of a third, outdoor, version
of the work: the texts is traced in white powder, possibly
plaster, partially on a path and partially over grass and soil.
Comments: The Estate offers the second version as an installation: Please dont leave me, 1969 / Paint, light bulbs, wire /
Installation: dimensions variable.
It seems clear that BJA made the work in 1969 as an installation. In a notation on the verso of the eponymous photo work
(cat. no. 2) he calls it a studio installation, an installation with
a certain intimate and limited reach. In order to be able to
identify the work on this list as installation, 1969, various versions we must first establish BJAs original intentions. These
appear to be clear, from his additional description of studio
installation and from the mainly documentary character of most
photographs. As such any posthumous reconstruction of the
installation should be referred to as a posthumously produced
installation.
For a discussion of this work see also: Wade Saunders, In
dreams begin responsibilities, Art in America, February 2004,
pp. 54-65.

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27. Hillside and Piece G

Hillside (1969)/ Piece G (1970) Installation/performance
Documented by 16mm black and white and colour film material
Collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
Two of the Landslide publications: description of works to be presented
on IHC hillside together with a colour photograph of Hillside and a print of
Piece G are in the Steven Leiber collection, San Francisco, California.
Two painted wooden boards bearing the text Piece G and Piece G/
Landslide are in the collection of Mary Sue Ader-Andersen Bas Jan Ader
Estate, courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Under the auspices of the journal Landslide, BJA and William

Leavitt organised two evening events/performances: Hillside
and Piece G.
Description: Hillside took place on 20 November 1969 at the
Immaculate Heart College. 200 red highway safety flares were
placed in a triangular pattern on a slope to the right of a large
white building (presumably the Immaculate Heart College). After
being placed each of the highway safety flares was lit, giving
off a red light. The event began at 4.30 p.m. and lasted until
nightfall.
Comments: The performance was recorded on 16mm colour
film and photographs were taken during the event. There was
also an invitation card and, following the performance, a special
issue of Landslide with the description of works to be presented on IHC hillside and a photograph of the event (see
illustration).
The highway safety flares can also be seen in a drawing that
BJA made in 1970 for his Proposal to increase Sahara rain fall
(see: Andriesse, 1988, p. 16 and cat. no. 35).
Description: On 7 May 1970 BJA and William Leavitt organised
the nocturnal performance Piece G at the Mount San Antonio
College where BJA was teaching. There are two schematic
drawings known. On one of these drawings (cat. no. 35) the
set-up of the event is clear. Sheep stood within a pen with smoke
machines and speakers placed around the field. The other
drawing was published as a print by Landslide (see illustration).
There are no known photographs, but there is some 16mm film
footage of the performance, which shows that there was also a
choir, which sang songs throughout the night.
Comments: In addition to the film footage and the drawings
there are also two painted wooden boards bearing the text:
Piece G and Piece G / Landslide, both with an attached pole.
The boards, which belong to the Estate, were presumably used
to announce the performance.
It is noteworthy that five years after Piece G BJA would once
again opt to use a choir for the first part of the trilogy In search
of the miraculous.

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28. Light vulnerable objects threatened

by eight cement bricks
1970 Installation/performance Documented with 14 different 35mm
colour slides, each with ballpoint pen inscriptions, and 16mm film material
(black and white, silent, 66).
The colour slides are in the collection of Mary Sue Ader-Andersen Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions. The film material
is in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Description: Light vulnerable objects threatened by eight cement

bricks was performed at the Chouinard Art Institute, where
BJA taught art.
Various objects are scattered throughout a large gallery with
breezeblocks hanging from ropes directly above them. Ader
carefully cuts each of the ropes in turn, crushing the vulnerable
objects below: eggs, three pots of flowers, a transistor radio, a
boxed birthday cake, a portrait, two pillows and a string of
illuminated light bulbs. The footage ends with a broad shot of
the entire space showing the crushed objects.
Comments: Various pieces of film footage exist, all of them with
a clearly documentary character (see the text by Elbrig de
Groot).
Exhibitions: 1 June7 June 1970, Chouinard Art School, Los Angeles.

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93

29. Two kinds of grass, two kinds

of fences, illuminated by two kinds of light
1970 Installation Documented by a 35mm colour slide with the title
inscribed in ballpoint pen and by two different photographs
(20.6 x 25.4 cm) (Andriesse, 1988, and Mller, 2000).

Description: The image shows a tangle of light bulbs illuminating grass, fencing and rocks.
Comments: BJA also used the tangle of light bulbs in one of
the known versions of Please dont leave me (cat. no. 26). 473
Readers Digests digested (cat. no. 30) has similar lighting and
other formal similarities with Two kinds of grass, two kinds of
fences, illuminated by two kinds of light.

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95

30. 473 Readers Digests digested

1970 Installation Documented by two 35mm colour slides with the
title inscribed in ballpoint pen and one drawing (approx. 50 x 65 cm) of
which the whereabouts are unknown (cat. no. 35).
The colour slides are in the collection of Mary Sue Ader-Andersen Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: 473 Readers Digests digested is a representation

of a play on words. In the space probably the same room in
which Please dont leave me was installed is a compost heap
of soil and copies of Readers Digest magazine, over which BJA
has sown grass seed. Covering the whole with plastic sheets
and bombarding it with light from various sources accelerates
the growth and composting process.
Comments: The popular magazine Readers Digest also plays
an important role in the performance The boy who fell over
Niagara Falls (cat. no. 31).
BJA mistakenly called the work 473 Readers Digest digested,
which we have corrected to 473 Readers Digests digested.

Bas Jan Ader / Installationsperformances

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97

31. The boy who fell over Niagara Falls

1972 Performance Documented by a sound recording, a video tape
and some black and white photographs, all in the collection of
Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: Seated next to a table, BJA reads aloud from an

article in Readers Digest about a boy who fell over the Niagara
Falls. At precisely marked points in the text he takes a sip from
a glass of water placed on the table. The performance lasts
approximately 15 minutes. At the end of the story the glass is
empty. BJA leaves the gallery without saying another word.
Comments: BJA performed the piece at Galerie Art & Project,
Amsterdam; Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven and at
Gallery A-402, Valencia, California. A video recording was
shown at Mezzanine Art Gallery, Nova Scotia College of Art and
Design, Halifax.
Exhibitions: 15 April21 April 1972, a work by Bas Jan Ader will be on exhibition at Art & Project from saturday, april 15, until friday, april 21, 1972, twice daily
(except sunday and monday) at 2 and 5 p.m., Art & Project, Amsterdam
(inv.).
17 June2 July 1972, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic), Kabinett fr
Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
28 March1 June 1973, 1, 2, or 4 day exhibits and evening performances,
Gallery A-402 (mezzanine), California Institute of Arts, Valencia, California
(inv.).
1 April7 April 1973, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Mezzanine Art Gallery,
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax (inv.).
Literature: Exhib.cat. Reykjavik, Galerie Sm, listahtd reykjavk, 1972, p. 1,
pp. 108-109.

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99

32. Thoughts unsaid, then forgotten

1973 Installation/performance Documented by a black and white
polaroid (8.9 x 12.8 cm)
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: The polaroid shows a lamp attached to a tripod, a

vase of flowers and a text written on the wall: THOUGHTS
UNSAID, THEN FORGOTTEN. N.B. the comma is not shown in
the polaroid, but was included in BJAs original instructions
(see opposite page). The work was first installed in 1973 at Ader
and William Leavitts exhibition at the Mezzanine Art Gallery
at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. The installation
lasted a week, during which time the flowers withered. After a
few days students repainted the wall, obliterating the text.
Comments: The polaroid shows the 1973 installation in Halifax.
Although the comparable installation Please dont leave me
was also issued as an autonomous photo work, this is not the
case with this polaroid.
The Estate has published the work as an installation in an edition of three, describing it as: Oil stick, tripod, clamp-on lamp,
flower, vase. Installation: dimensions variable. The Estate
describes Thoughts unsaid, then forgotten as an installation and
issues a photograph with instructions for its assembly. However,
in a recent article Wade Saunders (In dreams begin responsibilities, Art in America, February 2004, pp. 54-65) claims that
BJAs hand-written directions for installation are in the archives
of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Saunders argues
that the recently issued version is an inaccurate, posthumous
version of a temporary Ader installation without reference to
his original instructions. In them, Ader called the piece nova
scotia work. He also described the text as being 2 sentences
and wrote that the piece was to be performed.
Exhibitions: 1 April7 April 1973, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Mezzanine
Art Gallery, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax (inv.).

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33. In search of the miraculous

1975 Installation/performance (unfinished) Documented by slides,
an audio tape, the invitation to the Claire S. Copley Gallery, the sheet
music of shanties, Bulletin 89, photographs and film material of
the start of BJAs ocean voyage.
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: BJA did not complete In search of the miraculous.

The work is documented by various surviving elements: the
invitation to the Claire S. Copley Gallery in Los Angeles (exhibition from 22 April to 17 May 1975); an audiotape of sea
shanties sung by a choir of nine singers to piano accompaniment; the musical scores; 80 slides of the choir; Bulletin 89
Bas Jan Ader In search of the miraculous, Art & Project,
Amsterdam, in collaboration with the Claire S. Copley Gallery,
Los Angeles and the Groninger Museum (cat. no. 46).
In search of the miraculous is in fact a trilogy: during his solo
exhibition at the Claire S. Copley Gallery BJA showed his 18part photo work In search of the miraculous from 1973 (cat.
no. 17) and during the opening he had a choir, made up of Irvine
University students, sing sea shanties such as What are the wild
waves saying? and Good-bye my lover, good-bye to a piano
accompaniment. For the duration of the exhibition the choir
was represented by a slide projection and a sound recording
of their performance. The framed musical scores were hung on
the walls.
Comments: The Estate contains slides and a sound recording
that are considered an installation, dimensions variable.
The invitation to his exhibition at the Claire S. Copley Gallery,
Los Angeles (black and white postcard, 8.9 x 14 cm) is interesting. Front: at first sight it appears that someone (BJA?) is
hanging over the right-hand side of a sailboat apparently
fighting the forces of the sea. However, the photograph is
rather blurred, so it is not clear if it is a person or a bundle of
ropes approximating the shape of a person. The left half of the
postcard shows the boat, the right half shows nothing but the
rough sea. The text Bas Jan Ader / In Search of the Miraculous
is written over two lines in centred type at the bottom of the
image. Back: Top left: Tuesday Evening / April 22, 8-10 p.m.;

Bas Jan Ader / Installationsperformances

102

bottom left: Claire S. Copley Gallery / 918 N. La Cienega Blvd. /

Los Angeles California 90069 / April 22 May 17, 1975; on
the right is a blank space for the addressees details.
If the vague figure in the photograph is nothing but a bundle of
ropes, the photograph could have been taken by BJA himself.
The photograph may have been taken during BJAs first boat
trip (1962-63) from Morocco to America.
In a letter to Geert van Beijeren, BJA mentioned the second
part of the trilogy: In April, after Jan Dibbets, I have a show
at Claire Copley. The show is the forerunner to a project I am
currently working on. For now I want you to keep this strictly to
yourselves. It is part of the project In search of the MiraculousI
presented in Bremerhaven and includes a romantic and
adventurous trip in a very small boat across the Atlantic. (Letter
from BJA to Geert van Beijeren, 3 March 1975 (Art & Project
archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art
History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD),
The Hague)).
At the exhibition at the Groninger Museum BJA planned to
show documentation of his Atlantic crossing and have a choir
perform sea shanties and he probably intended to complete
the trilogy in Amsterdam. For further information, see the text
by Doede Hardeman.
Exhibitions: 22 April17 May 1975, Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the Miraculous,
Claire S. Copley Gallery, Los Angeles (inv. and bulletin).
Literature: Ida Gianelli, Bas jan Ader, Saman, no. 2, May/June 1975, p. 2.
Henry J. Seldis and William Wilson, A Critical Guide to the GALLERIES, Los
Angeles Times, 2 May, 1975, p. 8.
Clark Polak, Art by Clark Polak: Bas Jan Ader, Robert Graham, Roy
Lichtenstein, Los Angeles Free Press, 10-16 May, 1975, p. 17.
Henry J. Seldis and William Wilson, A Critical Guide to the GALLERIES, Los
Angeles Times, 16 May, 1975, p. 12.
--, bas jan ader, in search of the miraculous (songs for the north atlantic; july
1975), Art & Project, Bulletin, no. 89, Amsterdam July 1975 (in collaboration
with Claire S. Copley Gallery, Los Angeles and the Groninger Museum, Groningen).
Erik Beenker, Bas Jan Ader op zoek naar het miraculeuze, Nieuwsblad van het
Noorden, 11 November, 1975.
--, Moeder Ader in Drieborg bezorgd over haar zoon. Kunstenaar spoorloos op
Atlantische Oceaan, Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 1 December, 1975.
Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Ader op weg naar de einder, Hollands Diep, no. 3,
6 December 1975, pp. 27-28.

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104

105

34. What makes me so pure,

almost holy? And more
1967 13 drawings Pencil and Indian ink on paper 28 x 21.5 cm each
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen Bas Jan Ader Estate collection,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: In addition to the poster that BJA produced for

his MFA final show Implosion at the Claremont Graduate
School in 1967, he also made a publication and a series of
drawings. The thirteen drawings are probably identical to
those BJA reproduced in the first of the two stories in the
publication (cat. no. 39).
Comments: Some or all of these drawings were probably
shown at BJAs MFA final show Implosion at the Claremont
Graduate School. An installation photograph of the exhibition
(reproduced in Doede Hardemans essay) shows eight recognisable drawings.
Exhibitions: 14 February12 February 1967, Implosion, (M.F.A. Show), Lang
Gallery, Claremont Graduate School and University Center, Claremont, California.

Bas Jan Ader / Works on paper

106

107

35. Landslide proposal piece G,

May 7, 1970, Mt. San Antonio College,
and 473 Readers Digests digested
1970 Mixed media on paper Average dimensions: 50 x 65 cm
Collections: unknown

Description: There is a number of drawings that could be

considered as designs for performances or installations
(Andriesse, 1988).
Comments: The location of the drawings is unknown (Mary
Sue Ader-Andersen, conversation on 25 February 2006).
Andriesse mentions ten drawings that relate to projects
(Andriesse, 1988). Reproductions of two of the ten drawings
have been identified.
The work Landslide proposal piece G, May 7, 1970, Mt. San
Antonio College is a design for the G performance that BJA
carried out on 7 May 1970 at Mt. San Antonio College. A
drawing related to this performance was also published by
BJA and William Leavitts magazine Landslide in an edition of
25 mimeographs (see cat. no. 27). The design for the performance shows, amongst other things, speakers, a projector and
a fog machine.
Whereas the drawing for Landslide proposal piece G feels like
a design, the drawing for the installation 473 Readers Digests
digested (cat. no. 30) is more like a drawing in its own right. It
has no instructions written on it and provides a relatively accurate representation of the installation itself. This suggests that
it is not a design sketch, but more likely documents the completed installation. Paul Andriesse reproduced another three
drawings entitled Proposal to increase Sahara rain fall
(Andriesse, 1988, p. 16). It is unclear whether these were
included amongst the ten drawings already referred to in his catalogue; however, their style suggests they belong to this group.

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108

109

36. Piet niet

1974 Synthetic polymer paint on paper (8 pages) 76.2 x 55.5cm each
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate collection,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: Piet niet comprises eight different sheets arranged

in two rows of four. Each sheet has a letter reversed out of the
painted background of the three primary colours and black.
The drawings spell out PIETNIET top to bottom and left to
right.
Comments: Piet niet refers to two artists with completely antithetical artistic temperaments: Piet Mondrian and Salvador Dal.
The latter disapproved of Mondrians strict geometric principles
and once remarked on film: Piet niet (Salvador Dal in collaboration with Philippe Halsman, Chaos and Creation, 1960).
According to Andriesse, Mary Sue Ader-Andersen believed the
work should be hung in two sets of four sheets on opposite
walls: PIET on one wall and NIET on the other (Andriesse,
1988). BJAs arrangement in the design for Untitled (neon
sculpture) study (cat. no. 37) appears to contradict this,
although these are two distinct works and so the presentation
may not have been identical. Mller describes the works as
gouache on paper (Mller, 2000), However, Mary Sue AderAndersen and Daniel Congdon of Patrick Painter Editions
believe it must be synthetic polymer paint (acrylic) on paper
(conversation on 25 February 2006).

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110

111

37. Untitled (neon sculpture) study

1974 Watercolour and pencil on paper 55.9 x 76.2 cm
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate collection,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: This work comprises the letters of the drawing Piet

niet (cat. no. 36) schematically drawn on a sheet of paper.
Here, however, the letters are in the three primary colours.
There are written colour references and at the top the words
neon sculpture.
Comments: The drawing appears to be a design for a neon
sculpture but contains no dimensions or other essential technical details for its eventual execution. At the lower right,
however, there is a schematic indication of a possible spatial
arrangement.

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113

38. Implosion / The artist contemplating

the forces of nature
1967 Offset lithography on paper 40 x 27.5 cm Edition: unknown
Collections: Private collection Amsterdam / Mary Sue Ader-Andersen.

Description: The poster depicts B J A sitting on a chair on the

roof of his house in Claremont, California. He smokes a cigar.
Behind BJA and to his right are two cartoon-like cardboard
clouds, on which shadows of his head and right hand are cast.
The chimneystack appears disproportionately large, but is
actually real (compare with Fall 1, cat. no. 19).
Above the image, in stencilled lettering is the exhibitions title
IMPLOSION and beneath the image is BAS JAN ADER in the
same lettering. The venue, dates and times are handwritten
below BJAs name: M.F.A. Show. Opening Friday February 3
7-9 p.m. / February 4 through 12 1.30-5, Sat and Sun 2-5 Lang
Gallery. / Claremont Graduate School and University Center
Claremont California.
Comments: BJA produced the poster for his MFA exhibition
Implosion at the Claremont Graduate School in 1967. It is
assumed that the exhibited works have been lost except for
13 drawings (cat. no. 34). BJA later gave the photo the title
The artist contemplating the forces of nature (Willoughby Sharp,
Rumbles, Avalanche, winter 1971, p. 2). In this sense it seems
to prefigure his more romantic photo works, such as Farewell
to faraway friends (cat. no. 12) and The artist as consumer of
extreme comfort (cat. no. 1).
The photograph for Implosion was taken by Mary Sue AderAndersen (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence 2 March
2006).

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115

39. What makes me so pure,

almost holy? And more
+
What does it mean? Cheep cheep
1967 Published by BJA at Claremont Colleges Printing Service:
Claremont Graduate School and University Center Claremont, California
Offset lithography on paper 44 pages Ring bound 28 x 21.5 cm
Edition: 100
Collections: Private collection Amsterdam /
Poul ter Hofstede collection, Groningen.

Description: In addition to the poster for his MFA exhibition

Implosion at the Claremont Graduate School in 1967, BJA also
produced this publication. It is printed with offset lithography
with a series of drawings and hand-written texts, held together
with a ring binder. On the title page, written over four lines is
the text: What Makes Me So Pure, Almost Holy? And More / + /
What Does It Mean? Cheep Cheep / Written and Drawn by /
Bas jan Ader.
The publication contains two stories: What makes me so pure,
almost holy? And more and What does it mean? Cheep cheep.
Both stories comprise spreads with text on the left-hand page
and drawings on the right; the images and text are closely
related regarding content. The first story has an autobiographical element. It concerns a writer who leaves his birthplace to
settle in California. There are also references to his fathers trip
to Palestine and rainy Holland. In addition there are surrealistic
visions. The second text has a more philosophical character.
Exhibitions: 4 February12 February 1967, Implosion (M.F.A. Show), Lang
Gallery, Claremont Graduate School and University Center, Claremont, California.

Bas Jan Ader / Books and ephemera

116

117

40. Hurtful is the park

c. 1968-69 Indian ink on paper, 3 pages with collage 40 pages +
cover glued 23.5 x 19.1 cm
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen

Description: On the title page, written by hand, is the text:

Hurtful is the park / by Bas jan Ader
This is a unique piece, in which the text and images, both in
Indian ink, are fused into a cohesive whole. BJA added collage
elements to three of the pages, using pictures from magazines.
The relationship between the various parts is poetic rather than
logical.
Comments: The work is undated but probably made around
1968-69 (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen and Rene Daalder, conversation on 26 February 2006). Andriesse dates the work to
1964 (Andriesse, 1988).

Bas Jan Ader / Books and ephemera

118

119

41. Landslide.
Quarterly journal of underground art

an acetate cover. The letter is printed in black offset lithography

on green paper. [Maximum 25 copies]. Publications: 28.6 x
22.2 cm; letter: 27.9 x 21.6 cm; envelope: 30.5 x 22.9 cm.

1969-1970 There were at least seven issues published in a maximum

edition of 25 copies each. Each issue was published anonymously by BJA

[No. 3]:
NO.3. Expandable sculpture. untitled

and William Leavitt.

Landslide, [Los Angeles, CA], 1969

Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,

Card and sculpture in an envelope. Colour and black and white.

courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions / Steven Leiber collection,

Card is printed in black offset lithography. The sculpture is

San Francisco, California.

pink/purple styrofoam. [Maximum 25 copies]. Card: 12.7 x 17.8

Description: Landslide was issued anonymously by William

cm; sculpture: approx. 8.9 x 10.2 cm; envelope: 13.3 x 18.4 cm.

Leavitt and BJA as a Quarterly journal of underground art, as

they described it in a letter that accompanied the first edition.

[No. 4]:

Landslide was published in varying formats always limited to

Landslide number four, 1969

25 copies, with contributions by and about non-existent artists

Landslide, Los Angeles, CA, 1969

and critics. Several editions contained inserts such as prints and

Artists publication in an envelope. Black and white. Stapled

even a sculpture. Landslide is characterised by its highly satiri-

acetate cover. [Maximum 25 copies]. Publication: 22.2 x 17.8 cm,

cal content.

8 pages (unpaginated); envelope: 22.7 x 19.1 cm.

Comments: The title Landslide resembles that of the influential

Description: An interview with the artist John Grover about his

performance magazine Avalanche by Willoughby Sharp and Liza

latest exhibition at the Newman Gallery, followed by illustra-

Bear. However, Avalanche was first published in 1970, a year

tions of his work. Grover appears to be a non-existent artist;

after the launch of Landslide.

the interview is extremely ironic.

The following issues of Landslide are known:

[No. 5]:
[No. 1]:

AAAARRGH! An at home happening in five fragments

Landslide

[Landslide #5]

Landslide, [Los Angeles, CA], 1969

Landslide, Los Angeles, CA, 1970

Artists publication and letter in an envelope. Black and white.

Artists publication and letter in an envelope. Black and white.

The publication comprises six mimeographed sheets in an

The publication is covered. Stapled acetate cover. The letter is

acetate cover. The sheets have the title, edition number, sig-

an offset lithograph. [Maximum 25 copies]. Publication: 21.6 x

nature and date in pencil on the front. The letter is an offset

17.8 cm; letter: 21.6 x 16.5 cm; envelope: 22.9 x 19.7 cm.

lithograph. [Maximum 25 copies]. Publication: 29.8 x 22.9

Description: The publication contains extensive and clearly

cm; letter: 24.1 x 21.6 cm; envelope: 30.5 x 22.9 cm.

ironic instructions for a DIY happening.

Description: The six sheets contain six realistic drawings by

[No. 6]:

Brian Shitart, entitled Shoe, Bed, Love, T-Bone, Purses and

Pillows. Certain editions have different motifs such as Firestone.

(Landslide print (bonus issue))

The works are clearly ironic.

Landslide, Los Angeles, CA, 1969

The letter contains the following text: FEBRUARY 13, 1969 /

Print and letter in an envelope. Colour and black and white. The

DEAR SUBSCRIBER: / PLEASE FIND ENCLOSED YOUR FIRST

print is stencilled on a styrofoam sheet. The letter printed in black

ISSUE OF LANDSLIDE, THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF

offset lithography on green paper. [Maximum 25 copies]. Print:

UNDERGROUND ART. THIS ISSUE FEATURES A GROUP OF

22.9 x 21.6 cm; letter: 22.2 x 21.6 cm; envelope: 29.2 x 22.9 cm.

ORIGINAL, SIGNED PRINTS BY BRIAN SHITART, WHO IS

UNDER EXCLUSIVE CONTRACT TO LANDSLIDE. MR. SHITART

[No.7]:

IS ALSO KNOWN FOR HIS REMARKABLE SCULPTURE DONE

Landslide #7

IN EXPANDABLE MATERIALS. / WE HOPE YOU WILL ENJOY

[Landslide, Los Angeles, CA], 1970

READING THIS AND ALL FORTHCOMING ISSUES AS MUCH

Artists publication in an envelope. Black and white. Stapled

AS WE ENJOY BRINGING THEM TO YOU. / THE EDITORS

cover. [Maximum 25 copies]. Publication: 21.6 x 27.9 cm;

envelope: 22.2 x 28.6 cm.

[No. 2]:
Landslide number 2

Literature: Exhib.cat. Arnhem, Park Sonsbeek, Sonsbeek buiten de perken,

Landslide, [Los Angeles, CA], 1969

1971, p. 195.
Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val, Haagse Post, 5

Artists publication and letter in an envelope. Colour and black

January11 January 1972, p. 49.

and white. The publication has two parts. Part 1 comprises two
sheets, stapled with a wrapper; part 2 comprises four sheets in

Bas Jan Ader / Books and ephemera

120

121

42. Im too sad to tell you

1970 Postcard (offset lithography on card), black and white
8.8 x 13.8 cm Edition: unknown
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions / Private collection, Amsterdam /
Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons collection, New York.

Description: A postcard version of the photograph with the

same title. For a description see cat. no. 4.
Comments: The postcard was sent to friends and acquaintances.
BJA participates in the tradition of Mail Art. The postcard bears
the title Im too sad to tell you and the date Sept 13 1970
written by hand.
Exhibitions: 15 February8 March 1973, Mail Art, Kunsthistorisch Instituut
der Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam (inv. and cat.).
Literature: --, Agendas. De Galeries, Uitkrant, vol. 6, no. 10, 1971, p. 5.
Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val, Haagse Post,
5 January11 January 1972, pp. 48-49.
Exhib.cat. Amsterdam, Kunsthistorisch Instituut der Universiteit van Amsterdam,
Mail Art, 1973, p. 4.

Bas Jan Ader / Books and ephemera

122

123

43. Fall
1970 Booklet (offset lithography on paper) Published by
Bas Jan Ader 19.1 x 19.1 cm 48 pages Stapled Edition: unknown
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions / Private collection, Cologne.

Description: A booklet containing 22 film stills from the films

Fall 1, Los Angeles and Fall 2, Amsterdam. Left pages are
blank, right pages have a single image. The stills of the two
different films are separated by a blank spread. The only text is
on the cover: top right FALL, bottom right: BAS JAN ADER.
Comments: The stills were also shown together with the slide
projection of Untitled (Sweden) (cat. no. 10) in 1972 at the
exhibition Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Ger van Elk in the
Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center, Claremont,
California.
In addition to the film stills, there are also documentary photographs taken during the filming by William Leavitt (Fall 1) and
Ger van Elk (Fall 2) (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence
2 March 2006). Unlike the film stills, BJA never exhibited this
material.
BJA signed some copies of the booklet (letter from BJA to
Adriaan van Ravesteijn and Geert van Beijeren, 23 November
1970 (Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier), the
Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague) and see: Alied
Ottevanger, Dear Adriaan and Geert, Jong Holland, vol. 13,
no. 2, 1997).
Literature: --, Aktiviteit, Sonsbeek buiten de perken, 1971 Willoughby Sharp,
Rumbles, Avalanche, winter 1971, p. 2.
Lucy Lippard, Six Years: the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to
1972, London/New York 1973, p. 134.
Exhib.cat. various venues, Nederlandse Kunststichting, Film als beeldend medium,
1974, p. 7.

Bas Jan Ader / Books and ephemera

124

125

44. Bulletin 44 Bas Jan Ader,

broken fall, Westkapelle, Holland
1971 Offset lithography on paper Published by Art & Project, 8 October
1971, Amsterdam 28.5 x 41.9 cm Edition: approx. 800
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
Rotterdam /Private collection Cologne.

Description: The bulletin comprises a single A3 sheet folded in

half to A4. The copy held by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
is as follows:
Front (A4): art & project / adriaan van ravesteijn geert van
beijeren bergen en henegouwen / amsterdam 7 / van breestraat
18 / (020) 792835 / bulletin 44 / drukwerk/printed matter /
aan museum boymans-van beuningen / bibliotheek rotterdam
holland / mathenesserlaan 18-20 / 8.10.1971/ bas jan ader
broken fall, westkapelle (holland), 1971. This copy is also
postmarked Amsterdam and carries a 15-cent stamp.
Inside (unfolded to A3): A single black and white image framed
with a black border. The photograph was taken in Westkapelle
during the filming of Broken fall (geometric) with the lighthouse in the background; BJA faces the camera and falls
towards the sawhorse. The image is different to the photo work
of the same motif. The back is blank.
Comments: B J A had initially intended to use the image of Im
too sad to tell you (cat. no. 4), but had also promised the image
to the journal Avalanche:
On 23 May 1971 Geert van Beijeren wrote to BJA: Mr W.
Sharp [editor of Avalanche] was quite upset when he heard
that I am too sad... was about to be appear as a bulletin. His
story is that he contacted you for the photographs from the
fall films and was told that we would get them. He then
asked you for something more exclusive for Avalanche and
was given I am too sad... (by now he was quite irate and said
raising his voice) that none of your works would ever be published in the Avalanche quarterly again, if the bulletin went
ahead as planned (...) In a way he is right, of course, in that with
the so few publication possibilities, we should not print the
same things for what is a small and almost identical readership.
What should we do? Part of the bulletin is already with the
printer. Or should we wait until you are here and give you a
show with a different, altered bulletin.
In a telegram to Art & Project dated 29 May 1971 BJA replied:
Lets make new bulletin (...), Art & Project archive (Bas Jan
Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art History/ Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague).
Literature: Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure val,
Haagse Post, 5 January11 January 1972, p. 48.
Catalogue of our bulletins, Art & Project, Cologne Art Fair,
3 October 8 October 1972, p. 4.

Bas Jan Ader / Books and ephemera

126

127

45. Bremerhaven Poster

1972 Poster (silkscreen and offset lithography on paper)
Published by Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven, 1971
50 x 48 cm Edition: unknown
Collections: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. MB 1992/1 (MK)/ Private collection Amsterdam.

Description: The silkscreen poster has an offset photograph

with the same image as Broken fall (organic), Amsterdamse
Bos, Holland (cat. no. 9) from 1971 stuck to it, with the text
top centre: BAS JAN ADER and lower centre: KABINETT
FR AKTUELLE KUNST / BREMERHAVEN KARLSBURG 4 /
17.6.-1.7.72 MI. 16-19 SO. 11-13.
Exhibitions: 17 June2 July 1972, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic),
Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).

Bas Jan Ader / Books and ephemera

128

129

46. Bulletin 89 Bas Jan Ader,

In search of the miraculous
1975 Offset lithography on paper Published by Art & Project,
July 1975, Amsterdam 28.5 x 41.9 cm Edition: approx. 800
Collections: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen / Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
Rotterdam / Lowell Darling.

Description: The bulletin comprises a single A3 sheet folded in

half to A4. The copy held by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
is as follows:
Front (A4): art & project / 1007 amsterdam willemsparkweg 36
(020) 713991 / bulletin 89 / drukwerk aan / printed matter
to museum boymans-van beuningen / bibliotheek / NL-3002
rotterdam mathenesserlaan 18-20 / bas jan ader in search
of the miraculous / (songs for the north atlantic; july 1975-)/
in cooperation with the claire s. copley gallery, los angeles,
usa, and the groninger museum, groningen, holland.
Inside (unfolded to A3): An A3 image showing BJA sailing
away from the coastline.
Back (A4): the music and lyrics for A Life On The Ocean Wave
by Henry Russell.
Comments: Bulletin 89 was made in collaboration with the
Claire S. Copley Gallery and is one of the works that makes up
the unfinished project In search of the miraculous (cat. no. 33).
The photograph was taken by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen (Mary
Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence 2 March 2006).
Exhibitions: 22 April17 May 1975, Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the
Miraculous, Claire S. Copley Gallery, Los Angeles (inv. and bulletin).

Bas Jan Ader / Books and ephemera

130

131

This is the first publication to include Bas Jan Aders juvenilia

and early work. In America in the first half of the 1960s, Ader
produced academic work that was strongly influenced by the
informal painting and drawing style of CoBrA and the School
of Paris. In this period Ader painted bulls, nudes and seated
figures academic themes typical of the juvenilia of most
artists.
This early work was rediscovered only a few years ago. The
donation by Aders teacher Emil Hrebenach of a series of early
works to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in 2000 has stimulated renewed interest in his earliest artistic production. During
the research for this catalogue more of these works have been
traced and it is possible that more will be discovered. The
drawings, paintings and a single sculpture that have been
recently identified are catalogued here.

47. Sculpture
c. 1961 Painted plaster 19 x 22 x 24 cm
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3465 (MK)/donation 2000.

48. Untitled
c. 1961 Oil on canvas 71.5 x 30.5 cm
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3469 (MK)/donation 2000.

49. Seated woman

c. 1961 Ink on paper 60.5 x 44.5 cm
Signed lower left in pencil: Bas Jan Ader '61
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3466 (MK)/donation 2000.

50. Seated figure

c. 1961 Ink and tempera on paper 60.8 x 45.8 cm
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3467 (MK)/donation 2000.

51. Three yards of cows and bushes

c. 1961 Ink on chipboard 60 x 233 cm
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3468 (MK)/donation 2000.

52. Untitled (Seated figure)

1961 Tempera on paper 60.8 x 45.8 cm
Signed lower right in ink: Bas Jan 61
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3470 (MK)/donation 2000.

Bas Jan Ader / Early works

132

53. Untitled (Bull)

1961 Tempera on paper 45.8 x 60.8 cm
Signed lower left in ink: Bas Jan 61
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3471 (MK)/donation 2000.

54. Untitled (Woman)

1961 Tempera and black ink on paper 60.8 x 45.8 cm
Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam,
inv. no. 3472 (MK)/donation 2000.

55. The bull

1961 Ink and watercolour on paper 45,7 x 61 cm
Signed lower right: Bas jan 61
Collection: Dennis Parks.

56. Eat
1963 Oil on chipboard on a wooden frame 121.9 x 91.4 x 8.9 cm
Signed: Bas Jan Ader 63
Collection: Dennis Parks.

57. Blue painting

c. 1961 Synthetic polymer paint on paper 61 x 45.7 cm
Collection: Dennis Parks.

58. Figure on white background

c. 1961 Ink and watercolour on paper 61 x 45.7 cm
Signed lower right: Bas jan 61
Collection: Dennis Parks.

59. Numbers
1963 Synthetic polymer paint on paper 61 x 48.3 cm
Signed, dated and dedicated lower right in pencil: Bas Jan Ader 63;
To Dennis and Julie
Dennis Parks Collection.

60. Nude from Amsterdam

1965 Charcoal and gesso on paper 144.8 x 838 cm
Signed and dated
Collection: Jim Foster, Fort Collins, CO.

Bas Jan Ader / Early works

133

134

135

Untitled (Westkapelle, The Netherlands)

1971/2003 2 c-type prints 40.6 x 40.6 cm each Edition: 3
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate Collection,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: The two photographs were taken from the same

point, at a different location to the other Westkapelle photographs. To the left are a white barrier and a yellow casin and
on the horizon is the Westkapelle lighthouse. In the left-hand
photograph BJA is standing on sandy ground. In the righthand photograph he is lying on the same spot, with his head
at the extreme right.
Comments: Untitled (Westkapelle, The Netherlands) is a posthumous edition published by the Estate. According to Mary Sue
Ader-Andersen, BJA had planned to publish this edition as early
as 1971, but had not realised this in his lifetime mainly due to lack
of funds (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, conversation on 25 February
2006).
The photographs were taken by Mary Sue Ader-Andersen (Mary
Sue Ader-Andersen, correspondence 2 March 2006).

Bas Jan Ader / Posthumously published works

136

137

Untitled (Swedish fall)

1971/2003 40.6 x 40.6 cm each 2 c-type prints Edition: 3
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate Collection,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: Untitled Swedish fall comprises two colour photographs, of identical dimensions, placed side by side. The two
images show almost identical views of a pine forest. In the
left-hand image BJA stands beside a tree, in the right-hand
image he lies stretched out beside the same tree; a few felled
trees lie alongside him. As such a sequence is suggested. In both
prints BJAs position is identical to that of the trees, erect and
prone respectively. In the right-hand image he simulates a felled
tree; a touching depiction of the fall theme.
Comments: This work was produced during BJAs trip to Sweden
where he also made Farewell to faraway friends (cat. no. 12).
The two colour photographs were published posthumously by
the Estate in 2003. In 1972 BJA presented this work as a slide
projection in the exhibition Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Ger
van Elk at the Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art Center,
Claremont, California. The film stills of Fall 1 and Fall 2 were
shown at the same exhibition. This emphasised the thematic
continuity.
According to Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, the work was originally
intended as a photo work (Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, conversation on 25 February 2006).

Bas Jan Ader / Posthumously published works

138

139

Untitled (Neon sculpture)

2005 Steel, neon tubing and miscellaneous electrical components
Dimensions variable Edition: 3
Collection: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader Estate Collection,
courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions.

Description: At the Perry Rubinstein Gallery in New York in 2005

a neon sculpture was constructed according to the design
drawing made by BJA in 1974 (cat. no. 37).
Comments: In BJAs design drawing of the work there is a sketch
showing the placement in the space placed on the floor,
leaning against a wall.
Untitled (Neon sculpture) is a posthumous production, produced
some thirty years after the design was made.

Bas Jan Ader / Posthumously published works

140

141

In the film I silently elucidate

everything concerning falling

Elbrig de Groot

In his short films Bas Jan Ader defies gravity. He attempts, both literally and figuratively, to free himself from
the limits of existence inscribed by the laws of science, personal history, art history and the elements.
In 1992 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen purchased a large part of Bas Jan Aders modest oeuvre from his
estate, represented by Galerie Paul Andriesse. In addition to eight photo pieces, a poster and videotape, the
museum also acquired almost all the film material that Ader had left behind. This extraordinary acquisition
was first exhibited in the summer of 1993 together with two loans from the then Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst.
The films were shown on video.
In 1975 Bas Jan Ader departed from Cape Cod on a lone voyage to Lands End. The crossing from America to
England in a small yacht was to form the second part of his planned trilogy of works In search of the miraculous. Although he was an experienced sailor, his journey did not go as planned and his unmanned boat was
brought ashore six months later by fishermen at La Corua in Spain. When it became clear that Bas Jan
Ader would never return, his brother, Erik Ader, and one of the partners of Aders Dutch gallery Art &
Project, Adriaan van Ravesteijn, took charge of the estate, assisted by the artist Ger van Elk and the arts
2
administrator and collector Martijn Sanders. They asked the art historian and dealer Paul Andriesse to catalogue the estate and to write a monograph on the artist, which was eventually published to coincide with the
3
Bas Jan Ader exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1988. The transfer of the works to
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen was affected in consultation with the artists widow Mary Sue AderAndersen. The museum was granted the screening rights for all Bas Jan Aders films on the understanding
that the film material would be conserved and made accessible. Concurrently Mary Sue transferred the
1. Postcard from Bas Jan Ader to Geert van Beijeren & Adriaan van Ravesteijn,

Martijn Sanders was the Managing Director of Jogchem's Theaters before becoming

undated, probably December 1970. Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier),

Managing Director of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1982. He is also Chairman

Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie

of the Dutch public radio and television network AVRO and is a member of the Advisory

(RKD), The Hague.

Committee for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Both he and his father have

2. Ger van Elk (b.1941) was one of Aders closest friends. They studied together in

established important collections of contemporary art.

Amsterdam and Los Angeles and exhibited together in California in 1971 and 1972.

3. P. Andriesse, Bas Jan Ader: kunstenaar/artist, Amsterdam 1988.

Bas Jan Ader

143

administration of the estate from Paul Andriesse to the American art dealer Patrick Painter.
On 1 November 1999 all the film material was examined at Cineco Amsterdam by Paul Andriesse, the artist
and filmmaker Gerard Holthuis and myself. The film material comprises originals, copies, test rolls, rejected
shots, authorised films and uncompleted projects. The condition of the films varied enormously; some original film material appeared to have been projected and the copies existed in various versions.
For the conservation and reconstruction of the films, which was supervised by Holthuis, the material was separated into presentation and documentary material. The six authorised films were edited and restored. Technically
and in terms of content every effort was made to adhere as closely as possible to Aders original intentions.
The editing was carried out on the basis of technical information in consultation with Gerard Holthuis. All the
film material was cleaned and, where necessary, restored: perforations were repaired and joins were re-spliced.
Where no original negative had survived, a new negative was made from the restored positive to serve as the
basis for screening copies. The original titles either handwritten or stencilled were restored and finally all
the material was cleaned ultrasonically.
For many years the copy of the films used during the
Bas Jan Ader exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in
Amsterdam (1988) was believed to be the definitive set
of Aders complete authorised film production: Fall 1,
Los Angeles, 1970; Fall 2, Amsterdam, 1970; Im too sad
to tell you, 1971; Broken fall (geometric), Westkapelle,
Holland, 1971; Broken fall (organic), Amsterdamse Bos,
Holland, 1971 and Nightfall, 1971. Although the films
had had extremely limited distribution, various copies
had accumulated on film and/or video with quite noticeable variations. This gave cause to doubt the authenticity of the copies of the films shown at the Stedelijk
Museum (SM copy). In particular Im too sad to tell
you turned out to be considerably longer in compariBas Jan Ader during the filming of Im too sad to tell you, Amsterdam, 1971
son with material from other sources. Im too sad to
tell you; Fall 1, Los Angeles and Fall 2, Amsterdam had been included in the exhibition Film als beeldend
4
medium (Film as a plastic medium) organised by the Nederlandse Kunststichting in 1974. The composite
film, comprising the submissions of twelve Dutch visual artists, is now in the collection of the Netherlands
Institute for Cultural Heritage. The accompanying catalogue lists the duration of Im too sad to tell you as a
mere two minutes and five seconds, while Aders sorrow lasts for more than six minutes on the SM copy. In
order to establish a definitive version of each of Aders films we have taken Film als beeldend medium as a
point of comparison. Ader had submitted Im too sad to tell you; Fall 1, Los Angeles and Fall 2, Amsterdam to
the exhibition personally. These three films have been shown more frequently than the others, which is probably why varying versions have come into circulation.
In total Ader made three versions of Im too sad to tell you: one version in California, in which the artist sits
4. The exhibition and catalogue Film als beeldend medium was initiated in 1974 by the

then Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work.

Bas Jan Ader

144

in front of a fence (Cry Claremont, 1970) and two versions in Amsterdam filmed in a neutral space (1971).
Ader rejected the American version. Part of one of the Amsterdam versions (which I will call Amsterdam I)
was added to the other complete Amsterdam version (Amsterdam II). This combined version is the one
shown at the Stedelijk Museum in 1988. The length alone set alarm bells ringing.
Its duration differs substantially from the version on videotape in Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningens collection and that used in Film als beeldend medium.
The latter corresponds to only a small segment of the SM copy. The description in
the catalogue Film als beeldend medium provides no definite answer; in any case the
duration has been incorrectly stated here.
Given that Film als beeldend medium contains Amsterdam I, which is much less
theatrical and agitated than Amsterdam II (used for the overly long SM copy), I am
convinced that this is the sole authentic version. Bearing in mind the balance and
precision within Aders work as a whole, the combination of parts of Amsterdam I
and Amsterdam II is not convincing. The correspondence between Ader and Art & Project also makes clear
that only a fraction of the footage filmed in Amsterdam for Im too sad to tell you was actually used in Film als
5
beeldend medium.
Fall 1, Los Angeles and Fall 2, Amsterdam also exist in differing versions. On the SM copy of Fall 1, Los Angeles
the camera continues to run for a few seconds after Ader lands in the bushes, but in Fall 2, Amsterdam the
camera stops immediately after Ader falls in the ditch. In the versions in Film als beeldend medium both films
6
end directly after the fall. The film material includes a variety of footage filmed before and after the actual
falls. This has probably contributed to the confusion. For Fall 1, Los Angeles there is footage showing Ader
climbing a ladder onto the roof and performing a number of tests by allowing the chair to fall in various ways
from the roof. Likewise for Fall 2, Amsterdam there are different shots showing the Reguliersgracht with traffic
and passers-by and a fragment in which Ader is fished out of the water. The versions that show only the fall
itself appear most authentic and convincing given Aders preference for clarity and brevity. The same is true of
Broken fall (organic) and Broken fall (geometric). Here too, there are various versions showing the preparations
for and aftermath of the fall. In one variant of Broken fall (geometric) filming had to be stopped, to Aders
considerable fury, because a car drove into shot. In another we see him getting ready in the verge and walking
slowly towards the sawhorse and positioning himself beside it. The most compact version from the moment
at which he has readied himself alongside the sawhorse until he falls in the verge is the most convincing.
Nightfall poses no such problems. The available material on film and video is virtually identical, although
there is one version preformed with slightly less conviction than in the definitive version.
Since the films have been made available, interest in Aders work has grown enormously. Due to the number
of contaminated copies circulating on film and video, in principle the museum lends out only the edited
copies on 16 mm film format because it is often assumed that the works are videos or DVDs. Some institutions
offer old-fashioned monitors for authenticity, others mistakenly assume that the films should be shown as
installations with droning projectors. Plasma screens have also been installed, leading to bizarre distortions of
the image. All these assumptions are the consequence of the film mediums inclusion within exhibitions and
5. Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art

6. See the description of the films in the catalogue section.

History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague

Bas Jan Ader

145

museum collections since the 1960s. Exhibitions are not one-off events, but last on average six weeks. It is
understandable that films by visual artists are shown within the gallery context alongside two-dimensional or
three-dimensional works. Screenings in the cinema, on television and on the internet are governed by yet other
rules. In conserving and presenting artists films it is important to retain the original medium: film. Over the
years our vision has been muddied by considering copies of copies as to be work itself.
The remaining film material has also been organised and made accessible to visitors. The various test footage
and unauthorised films are not lent out and are available for consultation on video or DVD by appointment.
In addition to all the aforementioned trials for and versions of the authorised films there are also several
unfinished, rejected films or try-outs.

Other film material 1970 1973

Cry Claremont, 1970; Light vulnerable objects threatened by eight cement bricks, 1970; Untitled (Daybreak), 1971;
Untitled (Tea party), 1972 and Primary colors (Red, yellow and blue glasses), 1973, are relatively complete
films, which for one reason or another Ader did not approve. Untitled (Tea party) was completed but contains
sections that are out of focus. The camera was operated by Aders friend the American artist William Leavitt.
The film begins in a wooded landscape. Ader, dressed in a dark suit and tie, crawls
from camera right towards a large cardboard box extreme left. The box is held
aloft on one side by a stick, creating a sort of tent. In this improvised tea pavilion a
tea service has been neatly laid out on a small tablecloth. Ader takes up position
beneath the box, pours himself a cup of tea and drinks it. The camera zooms out
and the box falls to the ground, trapping Ader inside. One can clearly see the cord
that is activated off camera to pull the stick away.
The idyllic location for this film is similar to that in the untitled film (Sussex, 1970)
by Gilbert & George included in Identifications, compiled and produced in 1970 by
Gerry Schum. Both Identifications and Schums 1969 production Land art provide
7
a context that helps to clarify Aders films.
Other material that presumably relates to the shooting of Untitled (Tea party) includes a fragment of a child playing with a cardboard box and footage showing Ader
eating and drinking. There is a series of photographs bearing the same title, which
was issued in an edition of three, one of which is in the collection of Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen. Ader mentioned this film in his correspondence with Poul
ter Hofstede, the curator at the Groninger Museum responsible for preparing Aders
aborted show in 1975, but he never made a definitive edit of the film.
The hand-written title Daybreak refers to an incomplete film dealing with the four
elements. Bas Jan Ader stands on a rocky coast with his back to the crashing waves
and holds up a large sheet of paper bearing the inscription water. The camera
zooms out and then back in again. Ader now holds up a sheet with the word
earth written on it. Fighting against the wind, Ader completes the process with
7. See: exhib. cat. Ready to shoot: Fernsehgalerie Gerry Schum: Videogalerie Schum, Kunsthalle Dsseldorf, 2003.

Bas Jan Ader

146

air and fire. The film is clearly a try-out and is not edited.
Light vulnerable objects threatened by eight cement bricks is the record of a performance at the Chouinard Art Institute, where Ader taught. Various objects are
scattered throughout a large gallery with breezeblocks hanging from ropes directly
above them. Ader carefully cuts each of the ropes in turn, crushing the vulnerable
objects below: eggs, flowers, a transistor radio, a boxed birthday cake, a portrait, two
pillows and a string of illuminated light bulbs. The footage ends with a broad shot
of the entire space showing the crushed objects, followed by a text giving the location of the performance. There are various related pieces of footage, including one
showing Mary Sue. They are all undoubtedly documentary in nature.
Aders interest in light fall is explored further in a short fragment showing a closed set
of a Venetian blinds bound together with a string of illuminated light bulbs, which
he allows to drop in various stages: hanging, falling, lying.
Untitled (Waving), which was included ex-catalogue by Christopher Mller, is un8
edited. Ader is seen upside down and from behind, sitting on a chair on a hill,
waving a handkerchief, which, in the following piece of footage has changed appearance. Two other fragments show Ader in the same position without the handkerchief
and walking towards the camera carrying the chair. This is the world turned upside
down or as Piero Manzoni called his similar inversion, Socle du monde, 1961: the
art work as plinth for the globe. By turning the film on its head Ader has cheated
gravity once again.
Primary colors (Red, yellow and blue glasses) comprises numerous different reels and
can be considered a variant of Light vulnerable objects threatened by eight cement
bricks. Ader holds a breezeblock above a glass, filled in turn with yellow, red and
blue liquids. The camera zooms in on the glass until the colour fills the screen.
There are various different shots of the block, which has fallen and broken the glass.
The red glass was filmed most extensively. These are undoubtedly try-outs and are
amongst Aders first experiments with colour film; the colours are not always optimal.
In addition to making films Ader, like many artists at the time, also made works on
video, which was a much simpler medium to use than film. The equipment was
more user-friendly and there was no need to send the footage to be developed. The
medium had one drawback in this period in that it was not possible to montage the
material. Nonetheless, video was ideally suited to recording performances, environments or situations and all that was needed to present the work was a monitor.
Ader recorded two performances on video, one with an audience and one without.
8. Christopher Mller (ed.), Bas Jan Ader. Filme, Fotografien, Projektionen, Videos und
Zeichnungen aus den Jahren 19671975, Cologne 2000. Published to coincide with the
exhibition at the Kunstverein Braunschweig, Bonner Kunstverein and Kunstverein Mnchen.

Bas Jan Ader

147

In Primary time Ader re-arranges a mixed bouquet of red, yellow and blue flowers three times, adding and
removing flowers until the vase is filled exclusively with flowers of a single colour. The vase and flowers fill
the screen. Ader stands behind the vase, but we see only his hands at work. The camera follows the flower
arranging closely; the performance and the film have the same duration: 25 48. There is also a photo work
of this performance, comprising 21 stills arranged into three sequences of seven shots (Untitled, also known
as Flower work).
The boy who fell over Niagara Falls is a black and white recording of a performance that Ader performed several times. The video, whose duration is 1656, was made at Art & Project in Amsterdam in 1972. Ader sits on
a chair next to a table on which there is a reading lamp and a full glass of water. He produces a copy of the
popular scientific magazine Readers Digest and reads, in English, the adventure of a young boy who survived a fall over the Niagara Falls. At given points (marked with crosses in the article) he takes a sip of water
9
from the glass. When the glass is empty he falls silent and the performance is finished.
Bas Jan Aders unique film oeuvre deserves the viewers full attention; his short films should be shown alone
without other works to distract from them. However, full justice can be done to the videos by showing them
on monitors; they do not need to be projected in an auditorium or blown up to huge proportions. The two
media are quite distinct as Bruce Nauman once said: "Video is much more 'private' kind of communication.
Generally, it's what one person does. You sit and have contact with a television set, as opposed to a film, where
10
generally a lot of people go and the image is very large; it's more of a common experience."

9. Two photographs of the performance were printed in the exhibition catalogue:

Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art

listahtd reykjavk, Galerie Sm Reykjavik 1972, pp.108-109. According to

History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague.

a letter from Ader to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn dated 24 April

10. Bruce Nauman interviewed by Chris Dercon on video, Basel, July 1986, quoted in:

1973, the video was shown in the exhibition Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt at the

Janet Kraynak (ed.), Please pay attention please: Bruce Naumans words: writings and

Mezzanine Art Gallery, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, 1-7 April 1973,

interviews, London, 2003

Bas Jan Ader

148

The notions of fall and rise

were to be explored
Doede Hardeman

The following essay presents some of the findings of research carried out on behalf of Museum Boijmans
Van Beuningen and is an attempt to fill some of the gaps in our understanding of Bas Jan Aders work and philosophy.

The early work of Bas Jan Ader

Until recently little was known about Bas Jan Aders work from the early 1960s. Many works had been lost or
their location was unknown. However, in 2000 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen acquired a painting on canvas,
a work on chipboard, five works on paper and a small painted plaster sculpture that the artist had made in
America in 1961. The works were donated by Emil Hrebenach who had taught Ader art in the early 1960s at the
Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland. Ader was studying here as part of an exchange programme and had a studio in the schools basement, where he worked on paintings, sculptures and other spatial
1
works. Aders growing interest in visual art brought him into contact with the American artist Dennis Parks,
who at that time ran an exhibition space in Washington D.C.s old city centre called the Upstairs Gallery.
Here Ader was given his first opportunity to exhibit his work. Parks introduced Ader to Jos Nunez, who was
about to open a space called Galerie Realit and who invited Ader to show his works in the inaugural exhibi2
tion in 1961. The exhibition was reviewed in several newspapers, including the Washington Post of 23 April:
Basjan shows drawings which he would like to have seen as a creative play of lines, forms and accidents
3
rather than people or beasts. This exhibition led in turn to an invitation for Ader to show his work at the
4
Capitol Hill Community for Fine Arts in Washington, before he returned to the Netherlands. Although these
juvenilia should be viewed apart from his mature oeuvre, these works and indeed his time spent in America
in 1961 illustrate the extent of the 19-year old artists ambition.

1. Bob Nahuisen, Amerika bracht Basjan (19) uit Groningen onverwacht succes,

3. Leslie Judd Ahlander, If an art critic were president..., The Washington Post,

Het Vrije Volk, 26 July 1961, p. 9.

23 April 1961, p. 6.

2 According to Dennis Parks, Ader exhibited twice at the Upstairs Gallery

4. Bob Nahuisen, op. cit.

(telephone conversation with Dennis Parks, 4 February 2006).

Bas Jan Ader

149

Bas Jan Ader

150

Bas Jan Ader at his MFA final show, 1967.

Bas Jan Ader, thesis accompanying his MFA final show, 1967
(Claremont Graduate University archive, Claremont, California).

Bas Jan Ader

151

Implosions... Paintings and Constructions

As stated, Aders early work should be seen as distinct from his later oeuvre, which for Ader should form an
integrated whole. Paul Andriesse discussed this point in 1988: Bas Jan Ader envisioned a total oeuvre that
would come together over a long period of time. When all the work was done, it would have a meaning that
for him was complete. When you looked at a part of it, it would tell you something about his work as a whole.
5
This is an idea that could have originated during his philosophy studies in 1967-1969. This idea may have
occurred to Ader already during his studies at the Claremont Graduate School in California, which he completed in 1967 with his final show Implosion. Ader made extensive photographic documentation of the exhi6
bition and it has been discussed in several publications on the artist. The exhibition was accompanied by
a 44-page book What makes me so pure, almost holy? And more + What does it mean? Cheep cheep, which
Ader published in an edition of one hundred.
Aders MFA thesis entitled Implosions Paintings and Constructions discusses his final show in a concrete,
7
rational manner: the notions of fall and rise were to be explored. He describes the exhibited works, whose
titles such as Humpty Dumpty fall guy, Plan for a dangerous journey and Niagara Falls show a remarkable
continuity with the later works of the 1970s. The text makes clear that Ader already placed great importance
on the cohesion between his works as a whole: Distinctions as to separate pieces can be made, but the interfusion of all pieces into one greater entity is also an objective (as in a family or nation). In all of this, relationships become of primary importance I like to call this spanning of a vacuum (of spatial or mental order) as
8
it takes place in the spectators mind: implosion.
The photographic documentation of Aders final show and his MFA thesis provide an insight into his artistic
oeuvre and particularly his early fascination with the concept fall that would take on such a central role in
the films he made some three years later: Fall 1, Los Angeles and Fall 2, Amsterdam.

Sonsbeek 71 correspondence

Approximately a year after Ader made the films Fall 1, Los Angeles and Fall 2, Amsterdam he was approached
in March 1971 by Rudi Oxenaar, the then director of the Krller-Mller Museum, to participate in the film
9
programme of the exposition Sonsbeek buiten de perken (Sonsbeek beyond the limits). In a letter he asked
10
Ader if he might show the films Dakval (Roof fall) and Fiets (Bicycle). Replying in English, Ader accepted,
but with certain reservations about Oxenaars planned presentation methods: I hereby accept your invitation to
exhibit two works at the Sonsbeek 71 manifestation; though I nourish the fervent wish you can find a less
avant-garde way than simultaneous projection on four sides to show these works Most of the works on film
by better artists are difficult enough to comprehend properly when shown by themselves in surroundings
5. Paul Andriesse, Bas Jan Ader: kunstenaar/artist, Amsterdam 1988, p. 91.

9. This contact came about through Art & Project and Frans Haks. In a letter from Ader

6. Paul Andriesse, op. cit., pp. 9-14 and 16-17 and Christopher Mller (ed.), Bas Jan Ader.

to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn, 27 May 1971: Firstly my sincere

Filme, Fotografien, Projektionen, Videos und Zeichnungen aus den Jahren 19671975,

thanks for placing my 2 fall films in the Sonsbeek show. This was a most pleasant

Cologne, 2000, pp. 54-56.

surprise. (Art & Project archive (dossier Bas Jan Ader), Netherlands Institute for Art

7. Project description Bas Jan Ader (MFA thesis), 1967. (Claremont Graduate

History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague.

University archive, Claremont, California).

10. Letter from R.W.D. Oxenaar to Bas Jan Ader, 25 March 1971 (Sonsbeek archive,

8. ibid.

Krller-Mller Museum, Otterlo).

Bas Jan Ader

152

11

conducive to thought and contemplation. Ader was clearly concerned that his films should not be shown
together with the works of other artists, so that the viewers attention should not be diluted.
Ader was also critical of the selection of films by Dutch artists; in the same letter he wrote: In view of the fact
that I have resided in the U.S. for the last 10 years and the list of Dutch artists already appears to be inflated with
too many names, most of whose work appears to be of questionable international merit, I wish to be included
amongst the U.S. contributors. It is noteworthy that Ader already considers himself an American artist and
12
has a clear idea of his position within the international art world.
It is also noteworthy that Oxenaar referred to the two valfilms as Dakval and Fiets, because Ader was initially
uncertain as to their definitive titles. Indeed he described them in a letter to Art & Project as, two films
13
about falling and Art and Project referred to the films shortly before Sonsbeek 71 as, fall from roof and
fall in canal. It was only when he came to complete the forms for the works inclusion in the Sonsbeek
buiten de perken catalogue that Ader gives them concrete titles. In his reply to Oxenaar he wrote: (dakval)
properly titled Fall, Los Angeles, 1970 and (fiets) Fall, Amsterdam 1970. Here the films did not yet have the
numbers by which they are now known. At Sonsbeek buiten de perken the films were shown in the wrong order,
14
which is probably the reason that Ader gave them numbers for the catalogue of Prospekt 71 However, Ader left
no doubt as to the date of the works. On the forms he dated them as follows: Fall, Los Angeles, 1970 in April
1970, and Fall, Amsterdam, 1970 in July 1970. He also added the following text: The artists body as gravity
makes itself its master.

The conclusion of In search of the miraculous

The Amsterdam-based gallery Art & Project played an important role in Aders participation in Sonsbeek
15
buiten de perken in Arnhem and Prospekt 71 in Dsseldorf. The gallery represented his work in Europe and
16
was responsible for securing the purchase of three of Aders films by the Dutch State in 1974. The films Fall 1,
Los Angeles; Fall 2, Amsterdam and Im too sad to tell you were acquired by the Nederlandse Kunststichting
(Dutch Arts Council) as part of the exhibition Film als beeldend medium. This travelling exhibition was organised in 1974 for the Nederlandse Kunststichting by a project group at the University of Groningen led by
17
Wim Beeren. Aders entry in the catalogue was compiled by Poul ter Hofstede, a member of the project group
and curator at the Groninger Museum. In his correspondence with Ader, in addition to soliciting information
11. Letter from Bas Jan Ader to R.W.D. Oxenaar, 28 April 1971 (Sonsbeek archive,

Art & Projects intervention, Ader was eventually allowed to show his films at the

Krller-Mller Museum, Otterlo).

exhibition. Letter from Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn to Ader, 2 June

12. Eventually no distinction was drawn between Dutch and foreign artists in the

1971, Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art

exhibition catalogue Sonsbeek buiten de perken.

History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague.

13. Letter from Bas Jan Ader to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn,

16. Letter from Adriaan van Ravesteijn to Bas Jan Ader, 13 February 1974: Sure

16 February 1971, Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute

enough Her Majesty Minister of Culture has agreed to acquire three films from you!

for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague.

Fall 1 and 2 + Im too sad..., Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier),

14. In the catalogue for Prospekt 71 the films were given as Fall I (Los Angeles) and

Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie

Fall II (Amsterdam). The title sequences of the actual films read as follows: Fall 1 Los

(RKD), The Hague.

Angeles and Fall 2 Amsterdam.

17. Beeren later served as director of both Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and

15. Ader was not initially invited to contribute to Prospekt 71. However, through

the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Bas Jan Ader

153

for the catalogue, Ter Hofstede asked if he would be willing to prepare a solo exhibition at the Groninger
Museum in the autumn of 1975. Ader responded positively to this invitation and proposed to exhibit the
18
planned conclusion to his trilogy: In search of the miraculous. However, Ader had already planned to complete
the trilogy with an exhibition at the Situation Gallery in London. In the autumn of 1973, though, the Situation
19
Gallery went bankrupt, forcing Ader to seek a new location. The exhibition at the Groninger Museum fitted
with his plan to make a European section of In search of the miraculous. To be certain that he would be able
to realise this plan, he wrote to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn a few weeks before his departure
from America: Whats the situation with the Groninger Museum? If its nothing, let me know soon. I want to
confirm the European exhibition now and, since you are booked up already, if Groningen turns out not to be
20
interested, Ill have to make enquiries in Italy or France.
But the Groninger Museum was interested. The exhibition was reserved for the period 6 December 1975 to
21
4 January 1976. As at the opening of the first part of In search of the miraculous in May 1975 at the Claire
S. Copley Gallery in Los Angeles, a choir would sing sea shanties. Three months after Aders departure, his wife
Mary Sue dispatched the following pieces of sheet music to the Groninger Museum: A life on the ocean wave;
A wet sheet and a flowing sea; A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew; Beautiful sea; Good-bye, my lover, good-bye and
What are the wild waves saying? The Bragi students music society rehearsed the songs during Aders crossing,
but alas the performance never took place.

18. Ader asked the Groninger Museum to make a financial contribution to the exhibition

van Ravesteijn, 20 August 1974, Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier),

in the form of an acquisition. The Museum agreed and proposed to purchase a work for

Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie

approximately 3,000.00 guilders. (Letter from Poul ter Hofstede to Bas Jan Ader,

(RKD), The Hague.

12 November 1974. A copy of this letter is in the Poul ter Hofstede archive).

20. Letter from Ader to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn, undated

19. Ader wrote about the Situation Gallerys closure: I was very sorry about

(probably May or June 1975), Art & Project archive (Bas Jan Ader dossier),

Situations closure last autumn. I was going to complete a work there that comprises

Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie

an American and a European part: In search of the miraculous. (The American part

(RKD), The Hague.

was already finished and Anthony saw it and thought it was beautiful). They would

21. Note in Poul ter Hofstedes notebook during the organisation of the exhibition:

then publish it as a book (after I had made the European part there) and publish it

exhib. period: 6 Dec 1975 4 Jan 1976, Poul ter Hofstede archive.

to coincide with the exhibition. Letter from Ader to Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan

Bas Jan Ader

154

Letter from Bas Jan Ader to Poul ter Hofstede, 20 August 1974 (Groninger Museum exhibitions archive, housed in the RHC Groninger Archieven, Groningen).
Ter Hofstede used this information in the catalogue for Film als beeldend medium, 1974.

Bas Jan Ader

155

Aug 20 74
a work that I was indeed
Dear Mr Ter Hofstede.

working on, but not with

Please excuse my delay

light bulbs, but with 2 rock:

In answering your questions.

Inspections of nature: classical

I am not known for my skills as a

and modern. This work and 3 foll-

letter writer.

owing films from 1972 were burned

Nightfall and 2 Broken Falls are

on the rear seat of a car on one of

indeed silent and black and white.

the Los Angeles Freeways in a very

They are, I think, in an edition of 3

tragic car accident. What did survive,

Art & Project will know for

from 1972, is an untitled film,

sure.

black and white from 1972 in which the

The Van Garrel interview was peppered

artist sees a tea set in the forest

with so many misunderstandings and

and is captured in a trap. I think the

factual inaccuracies that I shall never again

colour photos from it were shown

give interviews to the popular press.

in a group exhibition with Leavitt

When it mentions a film I am to make

and Gilbert & George in Finsterwolde

with 2 light bulbs, that is

by A & P. There has never been an

actually Nightfall" a film that

agreement for an edition of the film.

was already finished, or

Then there is a colour film from 1973

working on, in my last 2 works

that William Leavitt and I cooperated

4 female dancers explore the

on. Colour, sound, entitled:

possibilities of space, their

Is a thing the same as its es-

bodies, light and number in quite

sence?

a formal manner. A work from

I would like to thank you for your

73 that is partially complete

interest and invitation to exhibit in

(Am is complete) and has to be

fall 75. In principle I am

finished is entitled:

prepared to do this exhibition if

In search of the miraculous

we can discuss the finer details

In which the artist searches by

and also a financial agreement

night in America and Europa.

(purchase, or something).
My position here at the University

Kind regards

would allow me to arrange things in

Bas Jan Ader.

person in the summer or early fall

(until 25 Sept) if necessary.

Bas Jan Ader

To give you an idea of what I am

7507 Sunset Blvd.

Hollywood
Calif.
U.S.A.

Bas Jan Ader

156

List of exhibitions and bibliography

The list of exhibitions

This research has shown that in 1961 Ader exhibited several times in Washington D.C. rather than the single
instance that had previously been believed. Because no primary documentation has surfaced to support this
information, these newly added exhibitions are explained by a footnote. Another exhibition that has never been
mentioned in the Ader literature is the travelling educational exhibition Mooi alleen hoeft niet (It doesnt have
22
to be beautiful) organised by the Nederlandse Kunststichting in 19761977. This exhibition included Aders
23
films Fall 1, Los Angeles and Fall 2, Amsterdam. Like Film als beeldend medium in 1974, Mooi alleen hoeft
niet was a touring exhibition and was shown at no less than eighty different institutions in the Netherlands
24
between 1976 and 1979.
The list of exhibitions is as complete as possible for the period 19611975. Where there is a known invitation
card for the exhibition it is noted as follows: (inv.). Where a substantial catalogue was published, it is noted as
(cat.). The catalogue details can be found in the bibliography. The list of exhibitions since 1976 is selected.

The bibliography

This research into Bas Jan Aders oeuvre has uncovered many additional documents on Ader published in his
lifetime. I have attempted to provide as complete a bibliography as possible for the period 19611975. I have
supplemented the bibliography compiled by Paul Andriesse in 1988 with additional items discovered during
this research. I have provided a selected bibliography from 1976 to the present day. The bibliographical information has been split between two distinct lists, one for exhibition catalogues and books and one for newspaper and magazine articles.

22. De Nederlandse Kunststichting: jaarverslagen 19791972, Amsterdam c. 1979.

24. De Nederlandse Kunststichting: jaarverslagen 19791972, Amsterdam 1979, p. 79.

23. Een andere kijk op de natuur in Mooi alleen hoeft niet, Amsterdam, 1977, p. 1.

Bas Jan Ader

157

List of exhibitions 19611975 (solo)

1961

List of exhibitions 19762007 (solo)

1985

29 January23 February, Bas Jan Ader (1942-1975), keuze uit

nagelaten werk, Art & Project, Amsterdam.

The Upstairs Gallery, Washington D.C.

6 April3 May, Basjan Ader (of Holland) Paintings &
Drawings, Galerie Realit, Washington D.C.
2
Capitol Hill Community for Fine Arts, Washington D.C.

1988

15 October4 December, Bas Jan Ader, Stedelijk Museum,

Amsterdam.

1963

Robin Metze Gallery, Pasadena, California (mentioned by

Bas Jan Ader).

1993

23 February24 March, In search of the Miraculous,

Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam.
11 July29 August, Bas Jan Ader Fotowerken en Films,
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (cat.).

1967

4 February12 February, Implosions (M.F.A. Show),

Lang Gallery, Claremont Graduate School and University
Center, Claremont, California.

1994

17 February27 February, Bas Jan Ader, Kunstverein

Mnchen, Munich.
30 March29 May, Migrateurs, Muse dArt Moderne de
la Ville de Paris, Paris (cat.).
2 April7 May, Bas Jan Ader, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery,
New York.

1970

1 June7 June, Chouinard Art School, Los Angeles.

1972

15 April21 April, a work by Bas Jan Ader will be on

exhibition at Art & Project from saturday, april 15, until friday,
april 21, 1972, twice daily (except sunday and monday) at 2
and 5 p.m., Art & Project, Amsterdam (inv.).
17 June2 July, Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic),
Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).
24 October27 October, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt,
Gallery A-402 (mezzanine), California Institute of Arts,
Valencia, California (inv.).

1995

Patrick Painter Editions Canada, Vancouver.

In Search of the Miraculous: A Hommage to Bas Jan Ader,
Villandry, London.
April, Filmabend. Die Filme von Bas Jan Ader, Galerie
Daniel Buchholz, Cologne.

1973

1999

1 April7 April, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Mezzanine

Art Gallery, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax
(inv.).

23 February20 March, Bas Jan Ader, The Art Gallery,

University of California, Irvine (cat.).
2 April8 May, Bas Jan Ader, Mary Porter Sesnon Art
Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz.
3 October5 December, Bas Jan Ader, Sweeney Art
Gallery, University of California, Riverside.

1974

9 November8 December, Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the

Miraculous, Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (inv.).

2000

8 April4 June, Bas Jan Ader. Filme, Fotografien,

Projektionen, Videos und Zeichnungen aus den Jahren
19671975, Kunstverein Braunschweig (cat.).
21 June30 July, Bas Jan Ader, Filme, Fotografien,
Projektionen, Videos und Zeichnungen aus den Jahren
19671975, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (cat.).
12 October24 November, Bas Jan Ader. Filme,
Fotografien, Projektionen, Videos und Zeichnungen aus
den Jahren 19671975, Kunstverein Mnchen (cat.).

1975

6 March5 April, Bas Jan Ader, Saman Gallery, Genoa

(inv.).
22 April17 May, Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the
Miraculous, Claire S. Copley Gallery, Los Angeles
(inv. and bulletin).

2001

20 January25 March, Bas Jan Ader, Thoughts unsaid,

then forgotten, Het Domein, Sittard.

1. This emerged during a conversation I had with Dennis Parks, who owned
The Upstairs Gallery in Washington in 1961 (telephone conversation Doede

2002

Hardeman and Dennis Parks, 4 February, 2006).

19 October16 November, 2002, Bas Jan Ader,

Patrick Painter Inc, Santa Monica, California.

2. This exhibition is mentioned in an article by Bob Nahuisen, Amerika bracht

Basjan (19) uit Groningen onverwacht succes, Het Vrije Volk, 26 July, 1961, p. 9.

Bas Jan Ader

159

2003

1972

17 January23 February, Bas Jan Ader, Galerie Thomas

Schulte, Berlin.
19 March17 April, Bas Jan Ader, Index Swedish
Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm.
22 May28 June, Bas Jan Ader, Installations, photographies,
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris.
16 August14 September, Bas Jan Ader, Portikus im
Leinwandhaus, Frankfurt.

18 January20 February, Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt,

Ger van Elk, Pomona College Gallery, Montgomery Art
Center, Claremont, California (cat.).
4 June 21 July, listahtd reykjavk, Galerie Sm,
Reykjavik (cat.).
1973

15 February8 March, Mail Art, Kunsthistorisch Instituut

der Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam (inv. and cat.).
11 March6 April, Werken van Bas Jan Ader, Ger van Elk,
Gilbert & George en William Leavitt, Galerie Waalkens,
Finsterwolde (inv.).
28 March1 June, 1, 2, or 4 day exhibits and evening
performances, Gallery A-402 (mezzanine), California
Institute of Arts, Valencia, California (inv.).

2004

12 February23 May, Bas Jan Ader, Museo Tamayo Arte

Contemporneo, Mexico City.
27 May4 July, Bas Jan Ader, Modern Art Inc., London.
30 May, Bas Jan Ader, Film Screening, Tate Modern,
London.
2005

1974

5 November22 December, Bas Jan Ader,

Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York.
2 December, Filmavond (screening of the documentary by
Rene Daalder: Here is Always somewhere else and 6 films
by Bas Jan Ader), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
Rotterdam.

Kauffman, Bass, Moses, Jones, Ader and Dubinsky,

The Art Gallery, UC Irvine.
16 July , works by Bas Jan Ader, Ben Akkerman, Armando,
John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Jaap Berghuis, Alighiero
Boetti, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Daniel Buren,
Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Ger van Elk, Hamish
Fulton, Rainer Giese, Gilbert & George, Douglas Huebler,
William Leavitt, Sol Lewitt, Richard Long, Tomas Rajlich,
Stephen Rosenthal, Allen Ruppersberg, Robert Ryman,
Salvo, Lawrence Weiner and Ian Wilson, Art & Project,
Amsterdam (inv.).
19 November , Film als beeldend medium, travelling
exhibition Nederlandse Kunststichting.
The exhibition opened on 19 November 1974 at the Van
Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and then was shown from 7
December at the Groninger Museum in Groningen. In 1975
the exhibition travelled to the Theater de Muzeval in
Emmen from 31 January until 5 February and at the Moriaan
in Den Bosch from 1-16 March. By 1979 the exhibition had
been loaned fourteen times and travelled to institutions
throughout the Netherlands until the early 1980s. (inv. and
cat.).

2006

28 April2 July, Bas Jan Ader, All is Falling, Camden Arts

Centre, London (cat.).
26 August29 October, Bas Jan Ader, Please dont leave me,
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (cat.).
2007

Bas Jan Ader, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (cat.).

List of exhibitions 19611975 (Group)

1968

Invitational Group Sculpture Exhibition, Cal Poly Art

Gallery, Pomona, California (mentioned by Bas Jan Ader).
1969

List of exhibitions 19762006 (Group)

Faculty Show, Mt. San Antonio College, Walnut,

California (mentioned by Bas Jan Ader).

1976

7 March19 April, 7 Hollndische Knstler, Kunstmuseum,

Luzern (cat.).

1971

4 April24 April, Studio show, together with Paul Drake,

Ger van Elk, Jack Goldstein, William Leavitt, Allen
Ruppersberg, Stephen Sher, Wolfgang Stoerchle, the
exhibition took place in Jack Goldsteins loft, Los Angeles.
19 June15 August, Sonsbeek buiten de perken, in the film
tent in the garden of the Gemeentemuseum Arnhem,
Arnhem (cat.).
8 October17 October, Prospekt 71: Projektion, Stdtische
Kunsthalle, Dsseldorf (cat.).
Filmprogramma van Sonsbeek 71, Vestzaktheater, Groningen.

1977

Mooi alleen hoeft niet, travelling educational exhibition by

the Nederlandse Kunststichting (cat.).
1978 1979

15 December, 197829 January, 1979, Personal Worlds.

De werkelijkheid als metafoor/Reality as Metaphor,
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (cat.).

Bas Jan Ader

160

1979

1992

6 April14 May, Over wandelingen en reizen,

Internationaal Cultureel Centrum, Antwerp.
2 June2 July, Over wandelingen en reizen, Het Kruithuis,
Den Bosch.
10 August21 September, Over wandelingen en reizen,
Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht (cat.).

Vorhut aus dem Hinterland Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst

Bremerhaven, Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen.
11 April28 June, Uit de tijd geplukt, bloemen in beeldende
kunst en pozie, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden.
25 September29 November, Het Gedicht der Zee,
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
17 October29 November, No rocks allowed (ijskoude
douche.), Witte de With, Rotterdam.

1980

8 May22 June, Pier + Ocean, Hayward Gallery,

London (cat.).
13 July8 September 8, Pier + Ocean, Rijksmuseum
Krller Mller, Otterlo (cat.).
1 October1 December, Personal Worlds, Unesco
Conference, Belgrade (cat.).

19921993

6 December, 199224 January, 1993, Auf Kleinstem

Raum 25 Jahre Kabinett fr Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven,
Eine Auswahl von Arbeiten in der Stdtische Galerie
Gppingen, Stdtische Galerie, Gppingen.

1981

1993

9 March6 April, Personal Worlds, Studio Teatr Galeria,

Warsaw (cat.).

15 February13 April, Out of Sight, Out of Mind,

Lisson Gallery, London.
4 June17 July, Bas Jan Ader, David Deutsch, Lewis de
Soto, Maureen Gallace, Rodney Graham, Mary Lucier,
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York.
14 August4 September, Go Down Stairs Diagonally,
Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles.
5 November4 December, Sampler, Southern California
Video Collection, David Zwirner Gallery, New York (cat.).

1982

5 February18 February, Personal Worlds, Living Art

Museum, Reykyavik (cat.).
9 April11 July, 6080, attitudes/concepts/images, een
keuze uit twintig jaar beeldende kunst, Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam (cat.).
1984

1994

6 April9 May, Towards the End of the Century, Galerie

t Venster, Rotterdam.

Gone, Blum & Poe, Santa Monica.

13 October5 December, Achteinhalb, Bas Jan Ader,
Imogen Stidworthy, Clemens Stecher, Raum Aktueller
Kunst, Vienna.
22 October26 November, In the Field: Landscape in
Recent Photography, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles.

19871988

28 November, 198731 January, 1988, Een stille oceaan,

Kunstenaars in het spoor van Robinson Cruso, Stedelijk
Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft (cat.).

1995

13, 14, 15, 21 and 22 January, De heelal Hoed (films by

Dutch Artists), De Vleeshal, Middelburg.
21 January7 March, Hopeless, Centre for Contemporary
Arts, Glasgow.
MarchApril, Ardi Poels Gallery, Maastricht.
4 March15 April Endurance: The Information, travelling
exhibition by Exit Art, a.o. Illinois, Pennsylvania,
Amsterdam, Helsinki, Bremen, Miami (cat.).
7 July1 October, Histoire de lInfamie, Chteau de
la Louvire, Montluon.
19 August19 November, Album De fotoverzameling van
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Museum Boijmans
Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (cat.).
24 September12 November, Kunstenaarsportretten II,
Schilderijen en fotowerken vanaf de 17-de eeuw,
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

1988

7 February22 March, Een stille oceaan, Kunstenaars in

het spoor van Robinson Cruso, Gemeentemuseum
Arnhem, Arnhem (cat.).
26 March24 April, Een stille oceaan, Kunstenaars in het
spoor van Robinson Cruso, De Waag, Almelo (cat.).
21 May26 June, Een stille oceaan, Kunstenaars in het spoor
van Robinson Cruso, De Zonnehof, Amersfoort (cat.).
22 July26 August, Een stille oceaan, Kunstenaars in het
spoor van Robinson Cruso, Provinciehuis, Zwolle (cat.).
1991

2 February2 March, Los Angeles 19701975, Christine

Burgin Gallery, New York.
6 April11 May, Los Angeles 19701975, Richard
Kuhlenschmidt Gallery, Los Angeles.
22 NovemberDecember, Van Vlees en Bloedt, Stedelijk
Museum, Schiedam (cat.).

19951996

15 October, 19954 February, 1996, 19651975:

Reconsidering the Object of Art, MOCA The Temporary
Contemporary, Los Angeles (cat.).

Bas Jan Ader

161

24 January3 March, The Conceptual Document

19681972, Norwich Gallery, Norwich School Art and
Design, Norwich.
1 February4 March, Temporary Accommodation,
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.
18 March14 May, Azerty, Centre National dArt et de
Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris.
8 September29 September, A Pour Accident, Galerie
Chantal Crousel, Paris.
4 October28 October, Nathan Coley/Bas Jan Ader/Gavin
Wade, Vilma Gold, London.
11 October9 December, Fra de Holandske Lavlande:
verkelighed og kunst, 1960-2001/From the low countries:
reality and art 1960-2001, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen.

1996

Reel Work: Artists Films and Videos from the 1960s and
1970s, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami.
January25 February, More Than Real, Palazzo Reale
di Caserta, Naples.
1 June27 July, Dites-le avec des fleurs, Galerie Chantal
Crousel, Paris.
23 JuneSeptember, Autoreverse 2, Centre National dArt
Contemporain, Grenoble.
19961997

20 October, 19965 January, 1997, And Gravity, Works by

Bas Jan Ader, Guy de Cointet & Wolfgang Stoerchle,
Centre National dArt Contemporain, Grenoble (cat.).
1997

20012002

19 January16 February, You Cant Get There From Here,

Thomas Nordanstad Gallery, New York.
25 January16 March, Tacita Dean en Gerco de Ruijter,
Witte de With, Rotterdam.
16 May7 September, Sampler Southern California
Video Collection/Sunshine and Noire Art in Los Angeles,
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebaek.
16 December, Sub-Club/Impakt, t Hoogt, Utrecht.

8 December, 200114 April, 2002, Extreme

Connoisseurship, Fogg Art Museum, Boston.
2002

20 January14 April, From the low countries Reality and

Art 19602000, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden (cat.).
31 January7 April, Malerei ohne Malerei, Museum der
bildenden Knste, Leipzig (cat.).
20 April23 June, Conceptuele Kunst 19651975 uit
Nederlandse en Belgische verzamelingen, Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam (cat.).
28 April30 June, From the low countries Reality and Art
19602000, Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam (cat.).
2 May7 May, Castrophe, Internationale Kurzfiltage,
Oberhausen.
16 May29 June, Hinterlands: Bas Jan Ader, Matti Braun,
Daniel Pflumm, Stefan Sandner, Engholm Engelhorn
Galerie, Vienna.
22 May22 June, Gestures of Disappearance, Academy of
Visual Arts, Leipzig.
27 June29 June, Kraft der Negation, Theater der Welt,
Cologne.
29 June30 June, Kraft der Negation, Volksbhne, Berlin.
20 July14 September, Sculpturen van formaat van
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Stichting Laurens
Kerk, Rotterdam.
12 September30 October, Geographies #2, Galerie
Chantal Crousel, Paris.
18 September27 October, En Route, Serpentine Gallery,
London.
10 October3 November, Overzicht van Nederlandse korte
films, Sala de Cine Independiente La Enana Marrn,
Madrid.
25 November30 November, International festival of short
film of Bilbao, 44th edition, Bilbao.

19971998

15 November, 19971 February, 1998, Sunshine & Noir Art

in Los Angeles, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg.
19981999

26 September, 199817 January, 1999, Big enough for the

both of us seventies and nineties uit de collectie, Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
1999

8 July11 September, Drawings, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery,

New York.
19992000

5 November, 19999 January, 2000, Close-Ups,

Contemporary Art Center Nikolaj, Copenhagen (cat.).
2000

4 February21 May, Quotidiana, Castello di Rivoli, Turin.

27 May3 September, Bloemen van de nieuwe tijd,
Noord Brabants Museum, Den Bosch.
13 June16 July, Somewhere near Vada, Project Arts
Centre, Dublin.
3 November5 November, Kunstlijn, Frans Halsmuseum,
Haarlem.
2001

12 January10 February, Deliberate living, Greene Naftali

Gallery, New York.
12 January1 April, In the rough, images from nature
through the ages (Presentation of the Museum Boijmans
Van Beuningen collection), Museu Serralves, Porto.

20022003

18 October, 200219 January, 2003, Les anne 70: l'art en

cause, CAPC Muse dArt Contemporain, Bordeaux.
25 October, 200226 January, 2003, Cardinales, MARCO
Museo de Arte Contempornea de Vigo, Vigo.

Bas Jan Ader

162

2003

20042005

18 January16 March, Creeping revolution 2: Bas Jan Ader,

Sture Johannesson, Silke Otto-Knapp, Mathilde Rosier,
Wilhelm Sasnal, Lily van der Stokker, Frances Stark,
Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malm.
MarchApril, Onder controle, Filmbank, Amsterdam.
16 April31 August, Trauer, Atelier Augarten. Zentrum fr
zeitgenossische Kunst der sterreichischen Galerie
Belvedere, Vienna (cat.).
7 June12 July, Group Show No. 1, Patrick Painter Inc.,
Santa Monica.
5 July15 September, Faits et Gestes, Ateliers SNCF, Arles.
9 July6 September, The Distance Between Me and You,
Lisson Gallery, London.
9 September12 September, The Independent Film Show
3rd Edition, E-M Arts, Naples.
30 October30 December, Wish you were here The Art
of Adventure, The Reinburger Galleries, The Cleveland
Institute of Art, Cleveland (cat.).

24 July, 20042 January, 2005, Stalemate, Museum of

Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago.
20 November, 200421 August, 2005, Multiple Strategies,
Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati.
21 November, 200423 January, 2005, Aufruhr der Gefhle.
Leidenschaften in der zeitgenssischen Fotografie und
Videokunst, Kunsthalle Gppingen, Gppingen.
26 November, 200413 February, 2005, The Last Picture
Show: Artists Using Photography (19601982), Fotomuseum,
Winterthr.
9 December, 200423 January, 2005, The Dutch Show,
Het Nederlands Instituut in Athene, Athens.
2005

8 January26 February, The Lateral Slip, Sweeney Art

Gallery, California.
11 March12 June, The Last Picture Show: Artists Using
Photography, 19601982, Miami Art Central, Miami.
19 March29 May, Emotion Pictures, Museum van
Hedendaagse Kunst Muhka, Antwerp.
5 April26 June, Morir de Amore, Museo de Artes y
Ciencias (MUCA), Mexico City.
18 May4 September, Getting Emotional, Institute of
Contemporary Art, Boston.
26 May11 September, Colour After Klein, Barbican Art
Gallery, London.
1 June18 September, Open Systems: rethinking Art c.
1970, Tate Modern, London (cat.).
13 June18 September, Burlesques contemporaries,
Pratiques de la catastrophe, Muse National des Jeu de
Paume, Paris.
9 August15 August, Time Art Project, ThyssenBornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna.
8 September1 October, Interstate, Nicole Klagsbrun
Gallery, New York.
16 September29 October, Like it Matters, Center for
Contemporary Arts, Glasgow.
17 November, PERFORMA 05 (showing of the
documentary by Rene Daalder: Here is Always somewhere
else and 6 films by Bas Jan Ader), Anthology Film Archives,
New York.

20032004

10 October, 20037 February, 2004, Geometry of the Face,

The National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen.
12 October, 20034 January, 2004, The Last Picture Show:
Artists Using Photography (19601982), Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis.
14 December, 20031 April, 2004, To Find a Home,
SeARCH, Amsterdam.
2004

DLIGHT, (travelling film programme), Filmbank,

Amsterdam.
8 February9 May, The Last Picture Show: Artists Using
Photography (19601982), UCLA Hammer Museum,
Los Angeles.
1 May1 August, The Big Nothing, Institute of
Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
28 May19 September, The Last Picture Show: Artists
Using Photography (19601982), MARCO Museo de Arte
Contempornea de Vigo, Vigo.
10 June30 September, Manifesta 5, Manifesta 5,
San Sebastin.
17 June24 June, Depicting Love, Knstlerhaus Bethanien,
Berlin.
1 July30 October, Rose cest la, The Tel Aviv Museum
of Art, Tel Aviv.
6 July28 August, Garten Eden, Galerie Brbel Grsslin,
Frankfurt.
15 August31 October, Aufruhr der Gefhle.
Leidenschaften in der zeitgenssischen Fotografie und
Videokunst, Museum fr Photographie, Braunschweig (cat.).
18 September19 September, Programma van Wim T.
Schippers, Filmbank, Amsterdam.
17 September30 October, Entropy On the Vanishing
Work, Galleria Museo, Bolzano.
29 September24 October, LHorreure Comique, Centre
National dArt et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris.

20052006

15 October, 200512 February, 2006, Movement, Museum

Ludwig, Cologne.
1 December, 200522 January, 2006, The Gravity of Art,
De Appel, Amsterdam.
2006

24 February25 March, Why Im so unhappy, OR Gallery,

Vancouver.

Bas Jan Ader

163

Bibliography 19611975
Exhibition catalogues and books

Stephen S. Rosenfeld, Dutch artist, 18, Molds Philosophy

and Jazz, The Washington Post, 22 April, 1961, p. 34.
, Bas Jan Ader exposeert in Washington. Negentienjarige
uit Drieborg veelbelovend kunstenaar, Winschoter Courant,
Dagblad voor Oostelijk Groningen, 22 April, 1961, p. 13.

1971

Exhib.cat. Arnhem, Park Sonsbeek, Sonsbeek buiten de

perken, 1971, part I, p. 112.11, 112.19 and p. 195.

, Bas Jan Ader exposeert in Verenigde Staten. Zoon van het

Groningse land, Amersfoortse Courant, 22 April, 1961, p. 7.

Exhib.cat. Dsseldorf, Stdtische Kunsthalle, Prospect 71:

Projection, 1971, p. 4 and pp. 8-9 and an added loose-leaf
plan in the back of the catalogue.

Leslie Judd Ahlander, If an Art Critic Were President...,

The Washington Post, 23 April, 1961, p. 6.

1972

Herman Pieter de Boer and Betty van Garrel, Zalig zijn de

schelen, Leiden 1972, p. 90, p. 230.

, Nederlander exposeert in Washington, Het Vaderland,

24 April, 1961, p. 13.

Exhib.cat. Claremont, California, Pomona College Gallery,

Bas Jan Ader, William Leavitt, Ger van Elk, 1972, pp. 1-2 and
pp. 4-6.

, Succes voor de Groninger, De Telegraaf, 26 April, 1961, p. 2.

Bob Nahuisen, Amerika bracht Basjan (19) uit Groningen
onverwacht succes, Het Vrije Volk, 26 July, 1961, p. 9.

Exhib.cat. Valencia, California, Gallery A-402, Bas Jan Ader,

Bill Leavitt, 1972.

1962

, De wijde oceaan, dobberden Basjan en Neil zes weken

lang. De zeilen hingen slap, er was geen zuchtje wind...,
Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 26 October, 1962, p. 19.

Exhib.cat. Reykjavik, Galerie Sm, listahtd reykjavk,

1972, p. 1, pp. 108-109 and pp. 118-119.
Catalogue of our bulletins, Art & Project, Cologne Art
Fair, 3 October 8 October 1972, p. 4.

1963

,Storm-beaten ketch towed to San Diego, Los Angeles

Times, p. 9.

1973

Lucy Lippard, Six Years: the dematerialization of the art

object from 1966 to 1972, London/New York 1973, p. 134 and
p. 265.

1971

Cor Blok, Gaat Sonsbeek buiten de perken?,

Museumjournaal vol. 16, no. 4, 1971, p. 174.

Exhib.cat. Valencia, California, Gallery A-402, 1, 2, or 4 day

exhibits and evening performances march 28 thru june 1, 1973
(in this, Bas Jan Ader is mentioned as previously shown but
unannounced).

Kasha Linville, Sonsbeek: Speculations. Impressions,

Artforum vol. 10, no. 10, 1971, p. 55.
, Agendas. De Galeries, Uitkrant vol. 6, no. 10, 1971, p. 5.

Exhib.cat. Amsterdam, Kunsthistorisch Instituut der

Universiteit van Amsterdam, Mail Art, 1973, p. 4.

Peter Kress, Aktiviteit Sonsbeek buiten de perken, Das

Kunstwerk, 5 XXIV, September 1971, p. 77.
,bas jan ader, broken fall, westkapelle (holland), 1971, Art
& Project, Bulletin, nr. 44, Amsterdam, 8 October, 1971.

1974

Exhib.cat. various places, Nederlandse Kunststichting,

Film als beeldend medium, 1974, pp. 7-9 and p. 32.

Willoughby Sharp, Rumbles, Avalanche, winter 1971, pp. 1-3.

1975

--, University of California, Irvine 1965-1975, La Jolla

Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla 1975, p. 78.

1972

Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Aders tragiek schuilt in een pure
val, Haagse Post, 5 January11 January 1972, pp. 48-49.
William Wilson, Photo-Sculpture Show at Otis,
Los Angeles Times, 14 February, 1972, p. 8.

Newspaper articles and magazine articles

Hannelore Ahorn, Es geht Bas Jan Ader nicht um das

Filmen. Hollnder prsentiert sich im ,,Kabinett fr aktuelle
Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven, 20 June, 1972.

1961

L.J.A. (Leslie Judd Ahlander), Openings and Other Art

Activities, The Washington Post, 16 April, 1961, p. 6.

Bas Jan Ader

164

H.A. (Hannelore Ahorn), Elementare Erfahrungen. Bas Jan

Ader im Kabinett fr aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven, Bremer
Nachrichten, 28 June, 1972.

Henry J. Seldis and William Wilson, A Critical Guide to

the GALLERIES, Los Angeles Times, 16 May, 1975, p. 12.
, bas jan ader, in search of the miraculous (songs for the
north atlantic; july 1975), Art & Project, Bulletin, no. 89,
Amsterdam July 1975 (in collaboration with Claire S. Copley
Gallery, Los Angeles and the Groninger Museum, Groningen).

1973

, Kijktips, De Volkskrant, 10 March, 1973, p. 19.

, Kunst in stal Waalkens weer net als toen..., Winschoter
CourantOostgroninger Dagblad, 12 March, 1973, p. 5.

Erik Beenker, Bas Jan Ader op zoek naar het miraculeuze,

Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 11 November, 1975.

, Galerie Waalkens zondag heropend, Nieuwsblad van

het Noorden, 12 March, 1973, p. 10.

, Moeder Ader in Drieborg bezorgd over haar zoon.

Kunstenaar spoorloos op Atlantische Oceaan, Nieuwsblad
van het Noorden, 1 December, 1975.

, Boer Waalkens, Haagse Post, 31 March, 1973.

, Weer kunst te zien in Finsterwolde. Albert Waalkens wordt
gedreven door onneuzele nieuwsgierigheid, Winschoter
CourantOostgroninger Dagblad, 3 April, 1973, p. 7.

Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Ader op weg naar de einder,

Hollands Diep, no. 3, 6 December 1975, pp. 27-28.
, Interfunktionen, Flash Art, no. 60-61, December
1975/February 1976, p. 18.

1974

Rubin Gorewitz, For Artists Rights, Art Rite, vol. 2, no. 6,

summer 1974, p. 12.
Lon de Vries Robb, Film als kunst of als beeldende kunst,
Museumjournaal vol. 19, no. 5, 1974, pp. 205-206.

Selected bibliography 1976 2006

Exhibition catalogues and books

Hannelore Ahorn, Kunstwerk ist Vorgang. Fotos des

Amerikaners Bas Jan Ader beim Kabinett fr Aktuelle
Kunst, Nordsee-Zeitung Bremerhaven, 14 November, 1974.

Exhib.cat. Luzern, Kunstmuseum, 7 Hollndische Knstler,

1976.

1976

, Premire film als beeldend medium, Eindhovens

Dagblad, 25 November, 1974, p. 2.

1977

Exhib.cat. Mooi alleen hoeft niet, (travelling exhibition),

1977.

, Galerij der Galerijen, Film als beeld, De Volkskrant,

20 December, 1974, p. 11.

1978

Exhib.cat. Persnliche Welten = Personal worlds = Mondes

personnels (travelling exhibition, the catalogue was published in various languages) (Bureau Beeldende Kunsten
Buitenland).

1975

Benjamin H.D. Buchloh (ed.), Filmographie von

Knstlerfilmen, Interfunktionen, no. 12, Cologne 1975, p. 85.
Germano Beringheli, Fiori a Mondrian, Il Lavoro,
11 March, 1975.

1979

Exhib.cat. Maastricht, Bonnefantenmuseum, Over

wandelingen en reizen, 1979.

, Film as a plastic medium, Flash Art, no. 54-55,

May 1975, p. 5.

, De Nederlandse Kunststichting: jaarverslagen

19791972, De Nederlandse Kunststichting, Amsterdam
around 1979.

Ida Gianelli, Bas jan Ader, Saman, no. 2, May/June 1975, p. 2.

Henry J. Seldis and William Wilson, A Critical Guide to
the GALLERIES, Los Angeles Times, 2 May, 1975, p. 8.

1980

Exhib.cat. London/Otterlo, Hayward Gallery/Museum

Krller-Mller, Pier + Ocean, 1980.

Art Calender, Los Angeles Times, 11 May, 1975.

1982

Clark Polak, Art by Clark Polak: Bas Jan Ader, Robert

Graham, Roy Lichtenstein, Los Angeles Free Press, 10-16
May, 1975, p. 17.

Exhib.cat. Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam,

6080, attitudes/concepts/images, een keuze uit twintig jaar
beeldende kunst, 1982.

Bas Jan Ader

165

1986

1998

Paul Hefting, De eigen ruimte. Beeldhouwkunst in

Nederland na 1945, Amsterdam/Brussels 1986.

Dalstar & Prigov, Vienna-Beha, Amsterdam 1998.

1999

Brad Spence, Bas Jan Ader. Published on the occasion of the

eponymous exhibition at The Art Gallery, Mary Porter
Sesnon Gallery, Sweeney Art Gallery (University of
California), 1999.

1987

Exhib.cat. The Hague, Een stille oceaan: kunstenaars in het

spoor van Robinson Cruso, (Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst,
Afdeling Presentatie Binnenland) 1987.

Exhib.cat. Copenhagen, Contemporary Art Center Nikolaj,

Close-Ups, 1999.

1988

P. Andriesse, Bas Jan Ader: kunstenaar/artist, Amsterdam

1988.

2000

Christopher Mller, Bas Jan Ader. Filme, Fotografien,

Projektionen, Videos und Zeichnungen aus den Jahren
19671975. Published on the occasion of the exhibitions at
the Kunstverein Braunschweig, Bonner Kunstverein and
Kunstverein Mnchen, 2000.

1991

Exhib.cat. Schiedam, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Van

vlees en bloed, 1991.
1992

The boy who fell over Niagara Falls, Amsterdam 1992

(print run 500).

2001

Steven Leiber, Extra art: a survey of artists ephemera,

19601999, San Francisco 1999.

Exhib.cat. Bremen, Neues Museum Weserburg, Vorhut

aus dem Hinterland Knstler aus 25 Jahren Kabinett fr
Aktuelle Kunst Bremerhaven, 1992.

2002

Exhib.cat. California College of Arts and Crafts, Wattis

Institute for Contemporary Art, California, Sudden Glory,
Sight and Slapstick in Contemporary Art, 2002

1993

Exhib.cat. (folder): Elbrig de Groot, Bas Jan Ader

fotowerken en films, Informatie Museum Boijmans
Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, July 1993.

Exhib.cat. Leipzig, Museum der Bildende Kunste, Malerei

ohne Malerei, 2002.

1994

Exhib.cat. Paris, ARC Muse dArt Moderne de la Ville de

Paris, Migrateurs, 1994.

Suzanne Heman, Jurriaan A. Poot and Carel H. Blotkamp,

Conceptuele kunst in Nederland en Belgi 1965-1975,
Amsterdam 2002.

Exhib.cat. New York, David Zwirner Gallery, Sampler

Southern California Video collector 19701993, 1994.

2003

Exhib.cat. Rodney Graham, The Museum of Contemporary

Art, California.

1995

Exhib.cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,

Album the photographic collection of Museum Boijmans
Van Beuningen, 1995.

Exhib.cat. Cleveland, The Cleveland Institute of Art,

Wish you were here The Art of Adventure, 2003.

Exhib.cat. Endurance: The Information (travelling exhibition).

Exhib.cat. Copenhagen, The National Museum of

Photography, Geometry of the Face, 2004.

Exhib.cat. Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art,

19651995: Reconsidering the Object of Art, 1995.

Exhib.cat. Vienna, Atelier Augarten. Zentrum fr

zeitgenossische Kunst der sterreichischen Galerie
Belvedere, Trauer, 2003.

1996

Exhib.cat. Grenoble, Centre National dArt Contemporain,

Bas Jan Ader: Gravity/Works, 1996.

2004

Exhib.cat. Vigo, Museo Do Mar De Galicia, A mares olladas

ocenicas en el arte contemporneo, 2004.

Thomas Crow, Modern Art in the Popular Culture, London

1996.

Exhib.cat. Braunschweig, Museum fr Photographie,

Aufruhr der Gefuhle: Leidenschaften in der zeitgenossischen
Fotografie und Videokunst, 2004.

1997

Siebe H. Hiemstra and Monica M. Schwarz, Pelgrim naar

Jeruzalem: dominee op de fiets, in 1936 en 1996, Baarn 1997.

Bas Jan Ader

166

2005

1986

Exhib.cat. London, Barbican Art Gallery, Colour After Klein,

Re-thinking colour in modern and contemporary art, 2005.

Paul Andriesse, Bas Jan Ader, een persoonlijke

ontwikkeling, Jong Holland, vol. 2, no. 1, March 1986.

Exhib.cat. London, Tate Modern, Open Systems: rethinking

Art c. 1970, 2005.

1988

Gerard Berends, Winschoter in het Stedelijk, newspaper

and date unknown.

2006

Jan Verwoert, Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous,

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006.

Louwrien Wijers, Bas Jan Ader en de zuiverheid van de

conceptuele kunst, Het Financieele Dagblad, 1988.

Dalstar & Van Wijk, TMC/14-76, Veenman Publishers,

april 2006.

, Bas Jan Ader, Stedelijk Museum Bulletin, Amsterdam,

October 1988.

Dalstar & Van Wijk, Ocean Wave, Veenman Publishers,

juli 2006.

Philip Peters, Lijden aan de kunst en aan het leven, De val

van Bas Jan Ader, De Tijd, October 1988.
Friggo Visser, Tragische zoektocht van Bas Jan Ader,
Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 18 October, 1988.

Newspaper articles and magazine articles

Betty van Garrel, Alles over het vallen, NRC Handelsblad,

21 October, 1988.

1976

Lizy Bear and Willoughby Sharp, A telephone conversation

with Mary Sue Ader, Los Angeles, May 28th, 1976,
Avalanche, no. 13, summer 1976.

Ole Bouman, Ode aan de val, De Groene, 28 October,

1988.

Jan H. Hensema, Kunstenaar uit Drieborg verdronk op de

oceaan, Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 10 July, 1976.

Willem Ellenbroek, Het vallen als falen obsedeerde Bas Jan

Ader en hij viel, De Volkskrant, 28 October, 1988.
Ida Jager, De zoektocht van Bas Jan Ader, Hervormd
Nederland, 12 November, 1988.

1978

Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous, Flash Art, no.

80/81, February-April 1978.

Ron Kaal, Beeldende Kunst, Onbaatzuchtig, HP, 12

November, 1988.

1980

Jrg Zutter, Erfahrungen mit der jngeren

Niederlndischen Kunst, Kunstnachrichten, vol. 16, no. 2,
March 1980.

Rob van Scheers, Bas Jan Ader. Op zoek naar niet

bestaande schoonheid, VPRO Gids, 3-9 December, 1988.

1981

1989

Jacobus Bos and Ronald in t Hout, De val opwaarts, Hard

Werken, no. 9, 1981.

Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen, Bas Jan Ader, Flash Art, no.

144, JanuaryFebruary 1989.
L.D., Bas Jan Ader, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam,
Perspektief, no. 35, April 1989.

1982

Saskia Bos, Icarus in het tijdperk van de ruimtevaart,

Kunstschrift, vol. 26 no. 1, JanuaryFebruary 1982.

1991

Paul Andriesse, Bas Jan Ader, het kunstenaarschap en

ontsnappen, 2-de Schrift, Akademie Arnhem Pers,
Arnhem 1982.

Colin Gardner, Christopher Williams and the loss of

history, Artspace, vol. 16, 1991.
1992

Patricia Deiters, Het Gedicht der Zee, Van Gogh bulletin,

no. 3, 1992, pp. 11-12.

1984

Marlies Levels, Een tuin voor ingewijden, 3-de Schrift,

Akademie Arnhem Pers, Arnhem 1984.

1993

Ren Pingen, In search of Bas Jan Ader, Metropolis M,

no. 3, 1993.

1985

Erik Beenker, Ader geboeid door de tragiek van het vallen,

De Volkskrant, 19 February, 1985.

Bas Jan Ader

167

Renee Steenbergen, Bas Jan Ader, NRC Handelsblad,

5 March, 1993.

Eric Troncy, Ruppersberg, De Cointet, Stoerchle,

Jan Ader, Flash Art, no. 192, JanuaryFebruary 1997.

W.S., Mythe met het leven bezegeld, De Volkskrant,

11 March, 1993.

, Zoeken naar mythe rond Bas Jan Ader, Utrechts

Nieuwsblad, 10 December, 1997.

Betty van Garrel, Bas Jan Ader, NRC Handelsblad,

23 April, 1993.

Esther Kerkhof, Een kermisrit rond een mythe, Het Parool,

13 December, 1997.

Thea Figee, Klein maar kloppend oeuvre van Bas Jan Ader,
Kunstbeeld, July-August 1993.

Robbert Roos, Mythische Ader toont het falen van de

mens, Trouw, 15 December, 1997.

Els Timmerman, Op zoek naar het wonder, HP/De Tijd,

July 1993.

1998

Siebe H. Hiemstra, Bas Ader in 1936: Ik vergeet dit avontuur

van mn leven niet, De Vogelvrije fietser, 20 May, 1998.

Peter van Eijkelenburg, Bas Jan Ader kwam om in zn

laatste kunstwerk, Rotterdams Dagblad, 10 July, 1993.

1999

, Dalstra wil verzoening met Rob Scholte,

NRC Handelsblad, 11 February, 1999.

Anna Tilroe, Baksteen valt in verjaardagstaart,

De Volkskrant, 16 July, 1993.

Bruce Hainley, Legend of the fall, Artforum, vol. 37, no. 7,

March 1999.

Bianca Stigter, Fotos en films van herontdekte kunstenaar

in Boijmans-van Beuningen, Bas Jan Ader: diepzinnig als
een kind, NRC Handelsblad, July 24, 1993.

Gustavus Kundahl, Bas Jan Ader at Sesnon Gallery,

Artweek, June 1999.

1994

Marcel Looden, Zoektocht van Bas Jan Ader eindigde in

oceaan, Groninger Dagblad, 21 February, 1994.

Christopher Miles, Bas Jan Ader, Art Papers,

July-August 1999.

James Roberts, Bas Jan Ader: the artist who fell from grace
with the sea, Frieze, no. 17, June-August 1994.

Jody Zellen, Bas Jan Ader, ArtScene, October 1999.

Collier Schorr, This side of paradise, Frieze, no. 17,

June-August 1994.

Jan Verwoert, Bas Jan Ader: the conceptuality of the grand

emotions, Camera Austria, no. 71, 2000.

Ingrid Schaffner, Bas Jan Ader, Artforum, vol. 33,

October 1994.

Y.D., Braunschweig, Artforum International, vol. 38,

January 2000.

2000

Carel Blotkamp, The End, De Witte Raaf, no. 83, JanuaryFebruary 2000.

1995

Mark Kremer, Hard acts and soft gestures, Kunst &

Museumjournaal, vol. 6, no. 3-4, 1995.

Cindy Loehr, Bas Jan Ader, New Art Examiner, March 2000.
1996

Henritte Heezen, Recensies Allen Ruppersberg en Bas

Jan Ader, Guy de Cointet, Wolfgang Stoerchle, Metropolis
M, no. 6, 1996.

Martin Jasper, Ein Knstler fllt von Dach und Baum,

Braunschweiger Zeitung, 7 April, 2000.
Sabine Kunz, Kurzer Moment des Loslassenes, Art: das
Kunstmagazin, no. 5, May 2000.

Farewell to Faraway Friends, Flash Art, no. 186,

January-February 1996.

Holger Liebs, Die Welt is alles, was das Fallen ist,

Sddeutsche Zeitung, 5 May, 2000.

1997

Alied Ottevanger, Beste Adriaan en Geert, Jong Holland,

vol. 13, no. 2, 1997.

, Verschollen auf hoher See, Der Spiegel, no. 18, May 2000.

Antje von Graevenitz, Extreme ensceneringen,

Metropolis M, no. 3, 1997.

Annette Tietenberg, Der Knstler als exemplarisch

Fallender, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 May, 2000.

Bas Jan Ader

168

Martin Pesch, Immer wieder vom Fahrrad fallen,

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 May, 2000.

Tony Godfrey, Conceptual Art, Burlington Magazine,

vol. 144, no. 1193, August 2002.

, Bas Jan Ader im Kunstverein, Kunstbulletin,

July-August 2000.

Morgan Falconer, En Route, Art Monthly, no. 261,

November 2002.

Werner Kruger, Anschluss an den Internationalen Diskurs:

Karola Grasslin neue Leiterin des Braunschweiger
Kunstvereins, Weltkunst, vol. 70, no. 12, October 2000.

Peter Herbstreuth, Bas Jan Ader, Flash Art, vol. 36, no. 229,
MarchApril 2003.

Arjen Hoekstra, Het verlangen naar de zee als zienswijze,

Zeilen, no. 10, October 2000.

Thomas Schulte, Bas Jan Ader, Flash Art, MarchApril

2003.

Christiane Fricke, Vom Dach gefallen, Handelsblatt, 20/21

October, 2000.

Chrissie Iles, Vanishing act: Chrissie Iles on Jack

Goldstein, Artforum, vol. 41, no. 9, May 2003.

Christiane Fricke, Bas Jan Ader: Filme, Fotografien,

Projektionen, Videos und Zeichnungen 1967-1975,
Kunstforum International, no. 152, October December 2000.

Alexandra Reininghaus, Es tut weh, Art: das Kunstmagazin,

no. 6, June 2003.

2003

Diether Buchhart, Trauer, Kunstforum International,

no. 165, June-July 2003.

2001

, Bas Jan Ader, De Volkskrant, 18 January, 2001.

Benedicte Ramade, Panorama polymorphique de la photo,
Oeil, no. 549, July-August 2003.

Karen Duking, Het ultieme einde, Dagblad de Limburger,

2 February, 2001.

Sandra Danicke, Unausweichliches Straucheln,

Frankfurter Rundschau, 21 August, 2003.

Sandra Smallenburg, Bas Jan Ader: een waaghals met visie,

NRC Handelsblad, 3 February, 2001.

Pryle Behrman, The Distance between Me and You,

Art Monthly, no. 269, September 2003.

Pascha Bronwasser, Slachtoffer van de zwaartekracht,

De Volkskrant, 8 February, 2001.

Thomas Wagner, Schillbruch ohne Zuschauer,

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 September, 2003.

Marcel-Armand van Nieuwpoort, Bijzonder retrospectief

van een valkunstenaar, Limburgs Dagblad, 10 February, 2001.

Brigitte Huck, Trauer, Artforum, vol. 42, no. 2,

October 2003.

Hilde van Gelder, Bas Jan Ader, De Witte Raaf, vol. 15, no.
90, MarchApril 2001.

Rene Daalder, Werkelijkheid bestaat niet, Schokkend

nieuws, 2 November, 2003.

Tom Holert, Tacita Dean: Museu dart contemporain de

Barcelona, Artforum, summer 2001.

2004

John Tozer, Nathan Coley/Bas Jan Ader, Art Monthly,

no. 251, November 2001.

Rene Daalder, Bas Jan Ader in the age of Jackass,

Contemporary, no. 60, 2004.

Rodney Graham, A thousand words: Rodney Graham talks

about the phonokinetoscope, Artforum, November 2001.

Sarah Thornton, Nocturnes, Contemporary, no. 62, 2004.

David Deitcher, The Last Picture Show, Artforum, vol. 42,
no. 6, February 2004.

2002

Paul Kempers, Samenspraak met Hooi, Het Financieele

Dagblad, 23 February, 2002.

Joe Scanlan, Artist curates: DIY, Artforum, vol. 42, no. 6,

February 2004.

Hans-Jurgen Hafner, Malerei ohne Malerei, Kunstforum

International, no. 159, April-May 2002.

Wade Saunders, In Dreams begin responsibilities, Art in

America, February 2004.

Bruce Hainely, Jennifer Bornstein Reviews Critical

Essay, Artforum, summer 2002.

Martin Herbert, Basque to the future, Artforum, vol. 42,

no. 9, May 2004.

Bas Jan Ader

169

Alison Gingeras, Manifesta 5, Art Press, no. 302, June 2004.

Time Out London, 29 June6 July, 2005.

Christy Lange, Bound to fail, Tate Etc. no. 4, summer 2005.

Sandra Smallenburg, Detective gevraagd; Manifesta 5 toont

kunst vol mysterie, NRC Handelsblad, 25 June, 2004.

Anna Dezeuze, Open Systems: Rethinking Art c. 1970,

Art Monthly, JulyAugust 2005.

Lisa Le Feuvre, Avalanche, Art Monthly, no. 278,

July-August 2004.

April Elizabeth Lamm, The art of disappearing Its been

30 years since Bas Jan Ader vanished on a solo sailing trip,
but were no closer to solving the mystery, Scottish Art
Review, August 2005.

Thomas Wulffen, Casa Ciriza, Kunstforum International,

no. 171, July-August 2004.

Erik Bluhm, Minimalisms Rubble: One William Leavitts

and Bas Jan Aders Landslide (1969-70), ArtUS, no. 10,
OctoberNovember 2005.

Marco Scotini and Sonia Campagnola, Gazing at the

New Europe: two views of Manifesta 5: sentimental in
San Sebastian eyes wide shut, Flash Art, vol. 37, no. 237,
July-September 2004.

Rene Daalder, Zwaartekrachtkunst in: a publication by

De Appel, December 2005.

Stephanie Moisdon, Manifesta 5: manifestement, cetait

hier, Beaux Arts Magazine, no. 243, August 2004.

Sandra Smallenburg, Een doedelzak als straalmotor,

Zwaartekrachtkunst: vallen, vliegen en springen,
NRC Handelsblad, 9 December, 2005.

Maria Barnas, De Plek, deel 6: Maria Barnas over

Bas Jan Ader, De Volkskrant, 19 August 2004.

Marina de Vries, Indrukwekkende poging tot vliegen,

De Volkskrant, 20 December, 2005.

Dan Fox, Manifesta 5 European biennial of Contemporary

Art, Frieze, no. 85, September 2004.

2006

Donatella Bernardi, Manifest 5: with all due intent,

Kunst-Bulletin, no. 9, September
2004.

Arend Evenhuis, Vallen, dalen, verzinken of doedelzakkend

stijgen, Trouw, 3 January, 2006.

Maeve Connolly, Nomads, tourists and territories:

Manifesta and the Basque country, Afterimage, vol. 32, no. 3,
NovemberDecember 2004.

Others

Susan Snodgrass, Manifesta 5: turning inward,

Source in America, no. 11, December 2004.

Nederlandse kunst sinds 1900 (episode 9), television

programme by the Stichting TELEAC/NOT, Utrecht.

1994

2005

1996

De Lidiotie Aux Burlesques Contemporains, Beaux Arts

Magazine.

Erika Yeomans, In Search of Bas Jans Miraculous, Video,

New York 1996.

Sally OReilly, The collapse in painting, Contemporary,

no. 70, 2005.

2004

Anna Abrahams (a.o.), MM2, Experimentele film in

Nederland vanaf 1960, Filmbank/Uitgeverij de Balie, 2004.

Marcus Field, Lots of fun and games for all the family,
The Independant, 5 June, 2005.

2006

Rene Daalder, Here is Always Somewhere Else,

Documentary, VPRO, Hilversum 2006.

Sarah Kent, Radical cheek, Open Systems makes Sarah

Kent nostalgic for the experimental, risk-taking 70s,

Bas Jan Ader

170

Biography

1956

Leaves home because he is unmanageable. He does not

complete secondary school.

19 April 1942

Bastiaan Johan Christiaan Ader is born in the hospital at

Winschoten. His mother is Johanna Adriana Appels
(19061994) and his father Bastiaan Jan Ader (19091944).
His parents are Dutch Reformed preachers in the parish
of Nieuw-Beerta (from 1938) in the province of Groningen.

19591960

Studies at the Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs

in Amsterdam. Classmates include Wim T. Schippers
and Ger van Elk.

4 November 1944

1960

Birth of Erik Ader.

Goes to study art at the Walter Johnson High School,

Bethesda, Maryland via the International Christian Youth
Exchange. He has his own studio.

20 November 1944

Bastiaan Jan Ader is shot dead by a firing squad along with

six other prisoners in the woods near Rhenen.

1961

Exhibitions at the Upstairs Gallery, Galerie Realit and

Capitol Hill Community for Fine Arts in Washington D.C.
Departs for the Netherlands and stays with his mother in
Drieborg. In the autumn he travels to Morocco via Spain.

November 1947

First edition of Een Groninger pastorie in de storm by Aders

mother about her life with her husband and children in the
parish of Nieuw-Beerta during the Second World War.

Bas Jan Ader

171

1962

1971

Sails from Morocco to California via the Panama Canal as

a crewmember of the yacht Felicidad.

Makes the rest of his fall films and photographs.

Participates in Sonsbeek buiten de perken in Arnhem and
Prospekt 71 / Projektion in Dsseldorf.

1963

After eleven months at sea the storm-damaged boat is towed

ashore at San Diego by a US Navy ship.

1972

Exhibition and performance The boy who fell over Niagara

Falls at Art & Project in April. In Holland buys a new
Mercedes with electric sunroof and ships it to America.
Relocates from Claremont to Los Angeles. Begins to
speculate in grain and metal.

19631965

Granted a working visa as a correspondent to the newspaper

Nieuwsblad van het Noorden in Groningen. Re-encounters
Ger van Elk, who is studying art history at the Immaculate
Heart College in Los Angeles. Following supplementary
exams he is admitted to the Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles
County. Meets Mary Sue Andersen, the directors daughter.
Gains his Bachelor of Fine Arts.

1973

Teaches for a short time at the Immaculate Heart College

and establishes a studio on Sunset Boulevard. Loses a lot
of money through speculation. Makes the first part of
In search of the miraculous. Through Art & Project exhibits
at Galerie Waalkens in Finsterwolde, a village close to
Nieuw-Beerta and Drieborg.

June 1965

Marries Mary Sue in Las Vegas, walking on crutches as a joke.

19651966

1974

Begins his studies at Claremont Graduate School, follows

photography course and installs a darkroom at home.

From the spring lectures at the University of California at

Irvine. Completes a 27-mile sea journey in a 10-foot sailing
boat. Experiments with dancers and computers for several
art projects. Marital crisis due to affairs. Buys an old
Porsche and re-sprays it blue.

1967

Gains his Master of Fine Arts in February with his final

show IMPLOSION Bas Jan Ader. July and August in
Europe with Mary Sue. Trip to Scandinavia.

1975

Prepares for a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Spring

exhibition of In search of the miraculous at the Claire S.
Copley Gallery. Buys a small sailing boat (12 6) and has
it made ready for the ocean crossing. Travels with the boat
on a trailer from California to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Agreement with the Groninger Museum for an exhibition.
Embarks on 9 July 1975 in the direction of the Gulf Stream.
Disappearance of Bas Jan Ader.

19671969

Studies philosophy at the Claremont Graduate School.

Immerses himself in Hegel and Wittgenstein.
1969 1970

Anonymously publishes seven issues of the journal Landslide

together with William Leavitt (1969-70). Lectures in art
history at Mount San Antonio College. Makes Im too sad
to tell you (1969) and the first fall films (1970). Introduced
to the Amsterdam-based gallery Art & Project.

1976

On 18 April his half-capsized boat is found by Spanish

fishermen off the coast of Ireland. Bas Jan Ader remains
untraceable.

Bas Jan Ader

172

Authors

Erik Beenker is a free-lance arts journalist. He worked at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen from 1986-2005,
latterly as head of the education department.
Alexandra Blttler is programme director of the CoalMine Fotogalerie in Winterthur and works as an academic researcher
at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, cataloguing the estate of Mark Morrisroe.
Tacita Dean is a visual artist. Born in Canterbury (UK), she works in a variety of media, including drawing,
photography, sound and 16mm film. She currently lives and works in Berlin.
Elbrig de Groot is an art historian. She has been a curator of modern and contemporary Art at Museum Boijmans
Van Beuningen in Rotterdam since 1979.
Doede Hardeman is an art historian. He undertakes free-lance research and publishes on twentieth-century art.
He lives and works in Utrecht.
Jrg Heiser is a curator and writer. He is co-editor of Frieze magazine and also writes for the Sddeutsche Zeitung.
He is preparing a touring exhibition for 2007-2008 entitled Romantic Conceptualism, to include work by among others
Andy Warhol, Robert Barry, Susan Hiller, Mathilde ter Heijne and Bas Jan Ader. He lives and works in Berlin.
Rein Wolfs is a curator and writer. He has been chief curator at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam since 2001.

Bas Jan Ader

173

Colophon

Thanks to: Mary Sue Ader-Andersen, Erik Ader, Peter van Beveren, Claire Copley,
Daniel Congdon (Patrick Painter Editions), Rene Daalder, Koos Dalstra & Marion

Editor and concept: Rein Wolfs

van Wijk, Peter Dykhuis (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design), Marianne Elder
(Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California), Jim Foster, Ida Gianelli,

Research: Alexandra Blttler, Elbrig de Groot, Doede Hardeman, Rein Wolfs

Hal Glicksman, Frans Haks, Poul ter Hofstede, Anita Hopmans (Netherlands

Authors: Erik Beenker, Tacita Dean, Elbrig de Groot, Doede Hardeman,

Emil Hrebenach, Maartje de Jong, Eddy de Jonge (The RHC Groninger Archieven),

Jrg Heiser

Fransje Kuyvenhoven (Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage), Toos van

Production: Sabine Terra

Bas Mhren (Krller-Mller Museum), Gifford Myers, Dennis Parks, Wade

Translations: Gerard Forde (essays), Ruud Brouwer (entries)

Vermaat (Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage), Lidy Visser (Netherlands

Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD)),

Kooten (Krller-Mller Museum), Steven Leiber, Jenni Lomax, Sarah Martin,

Saunders, Brad Spence, Antiquariaat Andr Swertz, Dick Veeze, Simone
Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD)),
Copy editing: Tekst | Support: Marieke van Driel (Dutch), Gerard Forde (English)

Patty Wageman (Groninger Museum), Jrgen Wesseler (Kabinett fr Aktuelle

Kunst) and Helene Winer.

Picture editing: Sabine Terra

Archives and institutions consulted: Archive of Mary Sue Ader-Andersen
Design: Via Vermeulen, Rotterdam / Rick Vermeulen, Natascha Frensch

Bas Jan Ader Estate, courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions; Koninklijke Bibliotheek,

Reprographics and printing: Drukkerij Die Keure, Brugge

Archieven, Groningen; Poul ter Hofstede archive; Art & Project archive

Photographic credits: Collection of Mary Sue Ader-Andersen - Bas Jan Ader

Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), The Hague; Stedelijk Museum library,

The Hague; Groninger Museum exhibitions archive, housed in the Groninger

(Bas Jan Ader dossier), Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor
Estate, courtesy of Patrick Painter Editions: pp. 13 (bottom), 19, 35, 49,

Amsterdam; Van Abbemuseum library, Eindhoven; Antiquariaat Andr Swertz,

51/53 (photography Tom Haartsen), 55, 59, 61, 89, 93, 95, 97, 101 (top),

Utrecht; Rijksarchief in Noord-Holland, Haarlem; Stedelijk Museum Het Domein

104 (top), 107, 109, 111, 113, 115, 119, 137, 139, 141, 144, 151, 171.

archive, Sittard; Steven Leiber archive, San Francisco; Museum Boijmans Van

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam: pp. 9, 12, 13 (top), 21, 23, 37,

Beuningen, Rotterdam; Sonsbeek archive (film programme dossier), Krller-

39, 41, 43, 45, 47, 57, 63, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87, 99, 127, 129,

Mller Museum, Otterlo; Claremont Graduate University archive, Claremont,

131, 134, 135 (cat. no. 52, 53, 54) 145, 146, 147.

California; Archives of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax.

Krller-Mller Museum, Otterlo (photography Tom Haartsen): pp. 66, 67.

Philip Aarons and Shelly Fox Aarons collection, New York (photography Tom
Haartsen): pp. 70, 71.

This catalogue is published by:

Poul ter Hofstede archive (photography John Stoel): pp. 104 (bottom), 117.

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Steven Leiber collection, San Francisco, California: pp. 91, 121.

Museumpark 18/20

Netherlands Institute for Art History/Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische

3015 CX Rotterdam

Documentatie (RKD), The Hague: pp. 105, 125.

T +31 (0)10 4419400

Dennis Parks collection: p. 135 (cat. no. 55, 56, 57, 58, 59).

F +31 (0)10 4360500

Jim Foster collection, Fort Collins, CO: p. 135 (cat. no. 60).

info@boijmans.rotterdam.nl

Private collection (photography Tom Haartsen): p. 123.

www.boijmans.nl

Courtesy of the Archives of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design: p. 101
(bottom).

Distribution: Idea Books, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Groninger Museum exhibitions archive, housed in the RHC Groninger Archieven,

www.ideabooks.nl

Groningen: p. 155.
Claremont Graduate University archive, Claremont, California: pp. 150, 151.

ISBN-10: 90-6918-216-5 / ISBN-13: 978-90-6918-216-2

This publication has also been published in Dutch

Cover images: Telegram from Poul ter Hofstede to Mary Sue Ader-Andersen,

ISBN-10: 90-6918-217-3 / ISBN-13: 978-90-6918-217-9

17 October 1975. Groninger Museum exhibitions archive, housed in the RHC

Groninger Archieven, Groningen.

2006 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Letter from Mary Sue Ader-Andersen to Poul ter Hofstede, 18 October 1975.
Poul ter Hofstede archive (photography John Stoel).

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.

Bas Jan Ader

174

Corporate Members of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

This publication accompanies the exhibition Bas Jan Ader, All is Falling held
from 28 April until 2 July 2006 at Camden Arts Centre, London. The exhibition

ABN AMRO

is organised in collaboration with Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,

CALDIC

Rotterdam.

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Director: Jenni Lomax

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Exhibitions Organiser: Sarah Martin

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