12 December 2026 to 11 April (2 May) 2027
Organized by the Hamburger Kunsthalle
Curated by Dr. Brigitte Kölle
Curatorial Assistance by Julia Kersting
Curatorial Coordination by Darryn Doull
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery
In 2025, the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Germany) mounted a large-scale exhibition of the fascinating work of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader (1942-1975), exactly fifty years after his disappearance at sea. In 2026, the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery is thrilled to announce that we will be the only venue to be hosting this significant exhibition, mounted throughout all of our exhibition spaces.
Bas Jan Ader is regarded as a seminal figure for subsequent generations of artists – a so-called artists’ artist. Legendary among insiders, his 16mm films, slide installations, photographs and videos can now be experienced by a wider audience in this exceptional solo exhibition, along with extensive documentary material and ephemera. More than fifty years after Ader’s disappearance, this exhibition offers an incredibly rare opportunity to view a large selection of the artist’s work, including early drawings from 1960-61.
Ader’s oeuvre can be described as at once melancholy and absurd, emotional and conceptual, simple yet complex. He made a profession out of the theme of falling as a symbol of failure, exploring this subject in diverse photographic series and diverse photographic series and films. The moment of loss of control became a conscious decision. Failure was merely an inevitable life experience. Ader continually sought to localise the human being existentially, setting out in quest of the hidden and the miraculous, all the while accepting the risk of bodily harm and ultimately his life.
In 1963, Bas Jan Ader moved to Los Angeles, where he and his wife, Mary Sue Anderson-Ader, established a second home. As part of an artistic trilogy entitled In Search of the Miraculous, Ader set off in 1975, at the age of 33, in a small sailing boat from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on a solo crossing of the Atlantic, heading for Falmouth in Great Britain. He would never reach his destination. Months later, the boat was found off the Irish coast, but Ader remained missing. With his disappearance at sea, the artist’s yearning, romantic search for the miraculous became a parable of human vulnerability and failure.
Works will be loaned for exhibition by the Estate of Bas Jan Ader (administered by Meliksetian | Briggs), the Hamburger Kunsthalle, and private collections in the United States and Germany.
Stay tuned for programming announcements!
Bas Jan Ader (b. 1942 Winschoten, The Netherlands) received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles (1965) and his Master's of Fine Arts at the Claremont Graduate School and University Center, Claremont, CA (1967). The artist was lost at sea in 1975 during the middle part of what was to be his grand trilogy of works In search of the miraculous.
Bas Jan Ader’s work has been exhibited widely in recent years including various exhibitions in the J. Paul Getty Trust’s Pacific Standard Time series of exhibitions in 2011 such as Under The Big Black Sun at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, retrospectives at the CGAC - Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago Compostela, Spain, 2010 and the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), Italy, 2013, as well as Universes in Universe at the 30th Sao Paolo Biennial 2012 and in museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Palais de Toyko, Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago and The Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Recent group exhibitions featuring the artist’s work include Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, Gebert Foundation, Switzerland, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany, Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria, the Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Castello di Rivoli, Turin as well as Viva Arte Viva, the 57th International Art Exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia / Venice Biennale curated by Christine Macel to name a few. In 2019, Ader's work was featured in a major three-person exhibition Disappearing - California c. 1970: Bas Jan Ader / Chris Burden / Jack Goldstein at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (catalog). Other exhibitions include the Barbican Gallery, London travelling to the LUMA Foundation, Arles, France and the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (cat.), the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, and the Kunstmuseum Ravensburg, Ravensburg, Germany.
The artist's work is included in important public collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art / LACMA, Museum of Modern Art / MoMA, New York City, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, the Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy, the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France among many others.
Meliksetian | Briggs is the exclusive representative of the Estate of Bas Jan Ader since 2014.
Header Image:
Bas Jan Ader (1942–1975), In Search of the Miraculous (One Night in Los Angeles) detail, 1973. 18 gelatin silver prints, handwritten in white ink, each 20.3 x 25.4 cm. Private Collection, New York © The Estate of Bas Jan Ader / Mary Sue Ader Andersen / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025. Courtesy of Meliksetian | Briggs, Dallas.
Featured Images:
Bas Jan Ader (1942–1975), Fall 2, Amsterdam, 1970. 16mm black and white film, silent, 19 seconds, documented in a color photograph. © The Estate of Bas Jan Ader / Mary Sue Ader Andersen / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025. Courtesy of Meliksetian | Briggs, Dallas.
Bas Jan Ader (1942–1975), Broken Fall (organic), Amsterdamse Bos – Holland, 1971. 16mm black and white film, silent, 1:44 min., filmed by Peter Bakker, documented in a black and white photograph. © The Estate of Bas Jan Ader / Mary Sue Ader Andersen / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025. Courtesy of Meliksetian | Briggs, Dallas.
Bas Jan Ader (1942–1975). Please Don’t Leave Me, 1969. Installation in the artist’s studio in Claremont, California, documented in a black-and-white photograph, gelatin silver print, edition of 3. © The Estate of Bas Jan Ader / Mary Sue Ader Andersen / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025. Courtesy of Meliksetian | Briggs, Dallas.
Bas Jan Ader (1942–1975), The Boy Who Fell Over Niagara Falls, 1972. Photographic documentation of the performance at the Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst (Cabinet for Contemporary Art), Bremerhaven, 1972. © Jürgen Wesseler / Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025.
