Customer Reviews

Here Is Always Somewhere Else

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Bas Jan Ader is not an artist I had heard of, even though I majored in art in university. I knew his car-crucified contemporary, Chris Burden, who also appears briefly in this documentary, but I had never heard of Jan Ader himself. I am glad to know him now. He was a pioneer and a ground-breaker, and an artist of impact, although he never achieved the heights of fame.

"Here Is Always Somewhere Else" is an excellent and engaging documentary, although it is one with a purpose. This is not a clinical examination of Jan Ader, but rather a celebration and appreciation. Director Rene Daalder (Population: 1) knew Bas Jan Ader personally, and is seeking to place his friend in his proper place in art history. This adds a personal and warming touch, as every Vincent needs his Theo, and the admiration and affection comes through. Daalder wants Jan Ader to appear in the art history books and to be studied along side other visionary and pioneering artists, and "Here Is Always Somewhere Else" seems like a gift to his vanished friend.

To appreciate Bas Jan Ader's art, it is important to know something of modern art forms such as video and conceptual art, of art work that is more about emotions and exploration rather than visual splendor. Jan Ader's most famous piece, "I'm too sad to tell you", is nothing more than a black-and-white video of the artist crying. Perhaps his most sublime performance was his final work, setting sail "In Search of the Miraculous" on a 13 foot cruiser into the Atlantic Ocean, a voyage from which he would never return. All of his work was tinged with sadness, although there is also irony and slapstick comedy. He was a complicated artist, but one well worth exploring.

The DVD for "Here Is Always Somewhere Else" is also excellent. The first disk has the documentary itself, and the second disk has a complete collection of Bas Jan Ader's video art. Anyone interested in this period of art will find this an inspiration.

I was a undergraduate student at the University of California, Irvine in 1975. I was in a small group of students in a class called "studio problems." The instructor was Bas Jan Ader. The conversations with Bas Jan and his discussions about the "meaning of Art" or the "purpose of Art" forever turned me inside out. One day, in the middle of class, he started to share about how Art was what woke you up in in the middle of the night, and the sheets were soaked with your sweat, and you couldn't go back to sleep, and all of life was at stake. (I'm paraphrasing). He looked up at his startled students and seemed embarrassed at his open, passionate, unbridled sharing of his passion for Art. He then looked down, as to dismiss all he had said as not being meant for our ears, and perhaps too adult for us. It was too late. Art would never be "clowns and sailboats at Laguna Beach" any further for me.

In the summer of 1975, Bas Jan asked me and a handful of students to all dress in navy blue and practice and then perform singing a chorus of sea shanties at the Claire Copley Gallery on La Cienega. "In Search of the Miraculous." It was a privilege and honor to be asked. We did the performance for Bas Jan. I was surprised at all of the people that showed up for the performance at that small gallery. After that performance and that class I never saw him again. I heard he had been lost at sea. Now, decades later, he has returned in the form of tributes, films, and Art pieces. What I learned from Bas Jan was that creating Art was as difficult and dangerous and challenging, and serious as "falling off a roof." I made Performance Art for four years after meeting him, then when I graduated with my MFA decided to stop making Art, and do something easier like building cities and transforming the world. There is a short segment in this film with me in his student choir at Claire Copley. I'm the Asian boy in the back row, left side. Amazing to find myself in this tribute to an amazing Artist and phenomenal teacher.

Here is Always Somewhere Else: The Disappearance of Bas Jan Ader is a movie about art that becomes a work of art in it's own right.

Having moved to California in the 1960s, Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader vanished in 1975 while attempting to cross the Atlantic alone.

Was the prescient conceptual artist motivated by nostalgia, suicide or some mystical search? In pondering these possibilities, Dutch filmmaker Rene Daalder also meditates on the soul of Holland, the lure of the sea and conceptual art.

A very personal film that paints an interesting portrait of a very unusual man, Here Is Always Somewhere Else is well made and at times deeply moving. The DVD makers have done a very nice job on the presentation and included some welcome supplemental material as well, making this one well worth a look for fans of art cinema and avant garde moviemaking.

Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader arrived in California in the late 1960s, created a small, potent body of lyric artworks, and then was lost at sea in 1975. He has received increasing attention in recent years, yet he remains a mystery. Here Is Always Somewhere Else: The Disappearance of Bas Jan Ader (2008), is an intelligent and insightful addition to the recent explosion of exhibitions and publications honoring the artist, and uncovering new material that helps shed light on Ader's fateful decision to sail across the Atlantic in the Ocean Wave (a twelve-and-a-half-foot sailboat).

Perfect balance between art, emotion and adventure, with a little philosophy tossed in on the side. Ranks up there with "In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger" and "How To Draw a Bunny." One of my favorite documentaries about art.

In researching Bas Jan Ader for a paper, I watched Rene Dalder's decidedly terrible take on his fellow Dutchman. The opportunistic Dalder attempts to insert his own life creating a false comparison to Ader, making the film merely cause the money came so surprisingly quickly. This false analogy becomes especially grating as you quickly understand that Dalder knows very little about art, made especially clear in his narration/commentary on individual art works with a telegraphed obviousness of a whodunnit, which coupled with the ominous background music of Unsolved Mysteries makes for something that might be funny if it weren't so tragically trite.

The documentary ought to have concentrated on his place within the constellation of contemporary art, exploring his work, through scholars, peers, and torchbearers of his particular brand of artmaking. Even Dalder's interview with Ader's best friend, noted artist William Leavitt is stale and static. Instead we travel to Holland to talk to someone who might have known Ader, maybe, when he was a boy: very illuminating. Instead of an homage and exploration of what made his work significant, we have this weak document by a Dutch filmmaker who's only similarity to Bas Jan Ader is that there are both Dutch and have spent time in Southern California. The connection is tenuously wrought, one feels that any Dutchman passing through LAX could have cobbled together a stronger thesis.

Please, save your money. Don't bother with this video. Scratch a few dollars together and buy a catalogue or Jan Verwoert's great book on Ader published by Afterall Books. What a missed opportunity.