Perry Rubenstein Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Bas Jan Ader (1942 –1975) in its new space on 24 Street. This exhibition will include a range of photographs, two films (including I'm Too Sad to Tell You, 1971), and also a neon sculpture fabricated for the first time. Ader was born in Winschoten, Holland, ultimately moving to California in 1963 after an eleven-month sailing voyage from Morocco to the United States. Working and studying primarily in the States, Ader kept a foot in Europe with frequent trips to Amsterdam. His small but concentrated body of work, which included photographs, slide and video installations, films and drawings, gave way to the atmosphere of the time that comprised a group of artists such as Ed Ruscha and John Baldessari loosely grouped under the auspices of the Californian Conceptualists, and Chris Burden who undertook extreme measures with his body in live performances. But unlike most artists of the time, Ader pushed his art to a quiet extreme as he consistently staged a tension between the body, human consciousness and natural forces. In reference to how his art was more about the exploration of his subjective presence rather than the "cool" distance of Conceptual art of the time, Ader said: "I do not make body sculpture, body art or body works. When I fell off the roof of my house or into a canal, it was because gravity made itself master over me." This mantra can be seen in works such as All My Clothes (1970) in which the artist lays out his wardrobe on a rooftop; Fall II (1970) where he rides a bicycle along a canal in Amsterdam and falls into the water; and I'm Too Sad to Tell You (1971) in which he breaks down and cries on film. Whether through the physicality of falling or the philosophical notion of failing, the artist conjures a range of psychological, sociological and historical factors that question gender, national character, and artistic merit. In his final and most poignant gesture toward exhausting the subject of his work by saying everything there was to say on the matter with as few words as possible, Ader set sail in 1975 from Cape Cod across the Atlantic never to be found again. The feat was to be documented and presented in an exhibition in Amsterdam later that year.
Bas Jan Ader studied at Immaculate Heart College and Otis Art College in Los Angeles where he completed his B.F.A. in 1965. He received his M.F.A. in 1967 from Claremont Graduate School in California. He held teaching positions from 1969 to 1975 at Mount San Antonio College, Immaculate Heart College and
University of California, Irvine. Solo and group exhibitions includes: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Grenoble; The Art Gallery at the University of California, Irvine; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; among others. This solo exhibition will be the first in over a decade in New York.
Also on November 16, 2005, from 7.30 to 10.00pm, PERFORMA 05, the first biennial of performance art in New York, will be holding a film retrospective of Bas Jan Ader's works, in addition to the documentary Here is Always Somewhere Else, Rene Daalder's documentary on the art and life of Ader. The screening will be held at Anthology Film Archives.
Concurrently on view at Perry Rubenstein Gallery 23 Street is an exhibition by Matthew Day Jackson.
Perry Rubenstein Gallery
527 West 23 Street
534 West 24 Street
526 West 24 Street
New York, NY 10011
T 212-627-8000, F 212-627-6336, E info@perryrubenstein.com, www.perryrubenstein.com
Gallery hours Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.
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