In Search of the Miraculous (One Night in Los Angeles)

From In Search of the Miraculous (One Night in Los Angeles), Bas Jan Ader, 1973

The remains of his boat

”In search of the miraculous began in 1973 when Dutch-born sailor Bas Jan Ader documented a nighttime walk through Los Angeles, from the Hollywood Hills to the ocean. On the resulting eighteen black-and-white photographs, he wrote out the lyrics to The Coasters’ song Searchin’. Wishing to continue his journey, he decided he would next make a trans-Atlantic voyage in a one-man yacht, concluding with another nighttime walk, this time through Amsterdam. In April of 1975, as a prelude, Ader exhibited In Search of the Miraculous at the Claire Copley Gallery, Los Angeles. For this exhibition, Ader recorded some of his University of California, Irvine students singing traditional sea shanties, which was played with an accompanying slideshow. All three segments of this project — the Los Angeles works, the sea crossing, and the walk in Amsterdam, were to be presented at the Groningen Museum in Holland later that year. On July 9, 1975, Ader set sail from Cape Cod. Remnants of his boat were found off the shore of Ireland, but Ader was lost at sea.” 

Image from here, story from here.

Swedish Fall

Untitled (Swedish Fall), Bas Jan Ader, 1971

Thoughts unsaid, then forgotten

Thoughts Unsaid, Then Forgotten, Bas Jan Ader, 1973

Permission to go to sea

Bas Jan Ader’s boyhood sailing permit issued July of 1959. Inside it is a note written by his mother, reading ”Mrs. J.A. Ader Appels gives her son, Bastiaan Johan Christiaan Ader permission to go to sea.”

from here