From July 4 to August 28, 2011

Few artists have risked their lives in the pursuit of the impossible. Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader is one of them.

Born in 1942, Ader’s childhood was deeply marked by the death of his father, a Christian minister executed by the Nazis for hiding Jewish refugees in an effort to help them escape.

At the age of 19, Ader journeyed across Europe and arrived in Morocco, where he found work aboard a yacht bound for America. The vessel eventually wrecked off the coast of California, leading Ader to Los Angeles, the city where he would settle permanently and meet Mary Sue Andersen, who would become his wife.

By 1970, after studying art and philosophy, Ader entered his most productive period, focusing on creating videos, photographs, and actions that embodied a uniquely personal conceptualism.

In 1975, however, Ader vanished in the Atlantic Ocean while aboard a tiny sailboat, where he was the sole crew member and passenger. He was undertaking the second part of a trilogy titled In Search of the Miraculous, aiming to reach Europe to complete the project’s third chapter.

Bas Jan Ader: Suspended Between Laughter and Tears is an exhibition and tribute featuring videos, photographs, and documents created by Ader himself. It is further enriched by works inspired by Ader, created by artists including Artemio, Piero Golia, Martin Kersels, Gonzalo Lebrija, Jed Lind, Kate Newby, Thiago Rocha Pitta, Fernando Sánchez, Sebastian Stumpf, and Diego Teo.