by Claudia Siefen-Leitich

Art-historically unchallenged is his role model function for conceptual artists such as Rosa Barba, Fiona Tan, Marco Schuler, or Shahryar Nashat, Bas Jan Ader’s biography provokes art history to romantic speculations: During the Second World War, his parents hid Jewish neighbours and refugees who knocked on their door in the hope of finding a hiding place. His father, Bastiaan Jan Ader, was deported and murdered in 1944. This traumatic experience is seen to form the basis of Bas Jan Ader’s desire to process it artistically.