This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to...
Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the...
More than 40 years ago, Bas Jan Ader decided to go on an adventure. In a tiny sailing boat, the Dutchman set sail across the ocean. Nine months later the boat was found adrift at sea. There was no sign of Ader. It’s a story that has always fascinated filmmaker Martijn Blekendaal, not just because...
The life and work of enigmatic Dutch/Californian conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader, who in 1975 disappeared under mysterious circumstances at sea in the smallest boat ever to cross the Atlantic. As seen through the eyes of fellow emigrant filmmaker René Daalder, the picture becomes a sweeping...
Untitled (Tea Party) is a short silent film. The camera slowly zooms into a sunlit clearing in a forest where Ader, formally dressed, is crawling towards a large box, propped up by a stick, under which he takes his afternoon tea—in the English style.
Jemison adopts and refashions the premise of Bas Jan Ader’s work of the same name. As in the 1970s-era video, a young man clings to a tree branch for a long minute before ultimately falling out of the frame. Jemison’s remake honors the original’s investment in what she calls “the tension...
