bulletin 89: "in search of the miraculous" (songs for the north atlantic; july 1975 - ) de ADER, Bas Jan

Full-bleed black & white illus. & sheet music. [4] pp. Single folded A3 sheet. Amsterdam: Art & Project, [1975].


A rare mailed copy of Bas Jan Ader's final fateful Art & Project bulletin, it is addressed to Stedelijk Museum curator Gijs van Tuyl (b. 1941). Mailed examples of this bulletin, sent to the gallery's mailing list, are particularly scarce.


"At the time of his disappearance in 1975, Ader was in the process of making In Search of the Miraculous. This work was initially manifested in 1973 as In Search of the Miraculous (One Night in Los Angeles), a series of eighteen black-and-white photographs of the artist walking alone in Los Angeles, with a transcription of the lyrics of the Coasters' song "Searchin'" handwritten along the bottom of each. The second version was conceived as a three-part work, commencing with an exhibition at Claire Copley Gallery in Los Angeles, continuing with the artist's voyage in a sailboat from Cape Cod to Falmouth, England, and concluding with an exhibition at the Groninger Museum in Groningen, The Netherlands. The Claire Copley exhibition, which included the 1973 photographic version of the piece, opened with a performance by a choir singing sea songs, which was documented and shown as a slide projection/sound installation. On 9 July 1975 Ader set sail for England, a trip that was estimated to take sixty to ninety days. Radio contact with him ceased after three weeks, and the following spring his boat was found off the coast of Ireland. His body was never recovered."-A. Goldstein & A. Rorimer, Reconsidering the Object of Art (1995), p. 47.


In near fine condition; faint sunning to the edges and folds. Edition of ca. 800 copies, of which ca. 400 were addressed and mailed.


❧ Art & Project. A History (2023) E141.


S. Leiber, curator, Extra Art: A Survey of Artists' Ephemera, 1960-1999 (2001) 31.


See C. Chaffee's description in In & Out of Amsterdam, Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960-1976 (2009), p. 54 & 60 (pictured).