Bas Jan Ader – Ctrl . Art . Del

By Jordana Bragg

Bas Jan Ader website
http://www.basjanader.com

Dutch/Californian photographer, filmmaker, conceptual and performance artist Bas Jan Ader (born 19 April 1942- died 1975) continues to have an influential presence via a powerful body of works developed throughout his brief career/ lifetime. His website is a select documentation and articulation of such works.

Navigating http://www.basjanader.com is effortless, with each section of information outlined under five separate headings: home, biography, selected works/homages, books/films and blog.

Each section is foreground by ambient music and a brief looping section from one of the select video works avaliable on the site:

Fall I, Los Angeles, Bas Jan Ader, 16mm, duration: 24 sec.

Fall II, Amsterdam, Bas Jan Ader, 16mm, 19 sec.

I’m too sad to tell you, Bas Jan Ader, 16mm, duration: 3 min 34 sec.

Broken fall (organic), Bas Jan Ader, 16mm, duration 1 min 44 sec.

Nightfall, Bas Jan Ader, 16mm, 4 min 16 sec.

Broken fall (geometric), Bas Jan Ader, 16mm, duration 1 min 49 sec.

The ‘home page’ opens with a repeated 5-second clip of Bas Jan Ader’s 3 minute 34 second silent black-and-white film I’m Too Sad to Tell You, which comprises of Jan Ader crying (1). The ‘biography’ section, (foreground by a repeated 5-second clip of Broken fall (organic) outlines Jan Ader’s formative years, art school experience, and continues on to outline the circumstances of his presumed death during the work In Search of the Miraculous, (1975).

Bas Jan Ader was last seen in 1975 while embarking on the work In Search of the Miraculous, which was proclaimed by the artist to be an approximately 60 day journey across the Atlantic in a 12½ foot sailboat. Six months later the boat was discovered off the coast of Ireland, with no trace of Bas Jan Ader.

The ‘selected works’ section, (also foreground by a repeated 5-second clip of Broken fall (organic) features the seven works listed in the third paragraph, and also a ‘homage’ section, which and invites contemporary artists to submit works influenced by Jan Ader. (1) The original works content includes several photographs and postcards mailed to his friends with the inscription ‘I’m too sad to tell you’.