1970s
A01=Alexander Dumbadze
academic
allen ruppersberg
art
artist
artistic
artwork
Author_Alexander Dumbadze
biographical
biography
Category=AGA
Category=AGB
Category=DNBF
college
conceptual
contemporary
creative
creativity
criticism
disappearance
end of life
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eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
famous
folklore
ger van elk
historical
legacy
los angeles
missing person
mysterious
mystery
myth
new england
oeuvre
research
romantic
sailboat
sailing
scholarly
subjectivity
theory
tragic
university
urban legend
well known
william leavitt
Product details
- ISBN 9780226038537
- Weight: 510g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 27 May 2013
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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On July 9, 1975, Dutch-born artist Bas Jan Ader set sail from Chatham, Massachusetts, on a thirteen-foot sailboat. He was bound for Falmouth, England, on the second leg of a three-part piece titled "In Search of the Miraculous". The damaged boat was found south of the western tip of Ireland nearly a year later. Ader was never seen again. Since his untimely death, Ader has achieved mythic status in the art world as a figure literally willing to die for his art. Considering the artist's legacy and concise oeuvre beyond the romantic and tragic associations that accompany his peculiar end, Alexander Dumbadze resituates Ader's art and life within the conceptual art world of Los Angeles in the early 1970s and offers a nuanced argument about artistic subjectivity that explains Ader's tremendous relevance to contemporary art. Bas Jan Ader blends biography, theoretical reflection, and archival research to draw a detailed picture of the world in which Ader's work was rooted: a vibrant international art scene populated with peers such as Ger van Elk, William Leavitt, and Allen Ruppersberg.
Dumbadze looks closely at Ader's engagement with questions of free will and his ultimate success in creating art untainted by mediation. The first in-depth study of this enigmatic conceptual artist, Bas Jan Ader is a thoughtful reflection on the necessity of the creative act and its inescapable relation to death.
Alexander Dumbadze is associate professor of art history at George Washington University.
