embrace tye-dye

o
k







dries van noten

im gonna steal a silver stallion

how not to.

here is always somewhere else

Bas Jan Ader was born to an melancholic and sublime inner world. but unreachable, anywhere else. He was two years old when his father was executed by the Nazis for harboring Jewish refugees.


















It maybe explains his lifelong search of the miraculous, whose last act was somewhere in his beloved ocean.

The west-east crossing of the Atlantic in the smallest boat ever was the second part of the ludic trilogy which was supposed to end after 60 days, in an art gallery at Amsterdam but it only happened 9 months later, when his tiny boat was found floating around Ireland.


All his artwork is somewhat a cold, yet delicate, reaction to roughness. An exibitions of his personal sores, but playing with minimalism and an almost ironic simplicity.
His work has always faced the tragical, testing the edge. Subtle and intense. As giving himself to the gravity, on the fall serie, or showing his sadness in the raw, crying for any reason (or none at all) to the cameras as in too sad to tell you.

Jan Ader beautifully tested and documented the human fragilities.
His vulnerability. Our vulnerability.






he was never found.
the perfect way of ending his search.








simple and sublime.

MMM

fm: What is modern?
mmm: An abused notion that became meaningless…










fall winter 2001-2 collection