In 1975, Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader set off alone on a small sailboat
across the Atlantic. He was heading home to Holland (but not for good)
from America. He’d been living in California and he’d planned to go
back. A photographer, installation, video and performance artist, Ader
called this crossing or performance, In Search of the
Miraculous. Physically, he didn’t make it. Metaphysically, he sure
did. The voyage, and the void he left, brings into question what we
know of one another and how we come to know, or believe, it. As the
film shows, our perception of the people closest to us is the work of
reason and the imagination. In all aspects of Ader’s life, from his
artistic interest in gravity to his final work, the Atlantic crossing,
he illuminated the “state of grace,” to quote a Dutch sailor in the
film, so infrequently experienced (even feared) in life. When falling,
as Ader shows in his films, which appear on disc two, we’re
essentially, briefly, free of constraints. In this film, falling
becomes a powerful metaphor for living.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2009.