Bas Jan Ader (1942 - disappeared 1975)

Conceptual artist. Ader created a handful of photographs as well as several short black-and-white films in which he is the sole performer. He also made performative installations. In 1973 he made the work 'In search of the miraculous (One night in Los Angeles)', a series of photographs showing a lonely figure wandering through the night in L.A, searching everywhere with a torchlight. It was the first part of a triptych. The second part would be the record of him crossing the Atlantic in a small boat, but Ader was lost at sea in 1975, in his attempt. His deserted vessel was found off the coast of Ireland on 18 April 1976, offering few clues as to his fate. The third part would have been a similar night time search as the first one, somewhere in the Netherlands, again to be recorded in a series of photographs. Due to his loss at sea, the triptych was never completed.The title “In Search of the Miraculous” was a reference to P.D. Ouspensky's mystical book In Search of the Miraculous. Ader's mother wrote the poem "From the Deep Waters of Sleep" on 12 October 1975, after having what she described as a premonition of his death: "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." "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 heard of happiness Springing from a deep well of sorrow? Of love, springing from pain and despondency, agony and death? Such is mine." Psalm 30:2