Key work Bas Jan Ader

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is proud to announce the donation of Untitled (Flower Work) (1974) by artist Bas Jan Ader. It is the first work by this influential Dutch artist to be included in the museum’s collection. Ader played an important role in the development of conceptual art in the 1970s. With the addition of this key work, this movement is more strongly represented within the Stedelijk’s collection. The donor is Erik Ader, the artist’s brother.

Untitled (Flower Work) consists of three photo series, each containing seven photographs. In each series, Bas Jan Ader gradually removes flowers from a vase until only flowers of a single primary color remain: red, yellow, or blue. By working with the three primary colors, he refers to the use of color by Piet Mondrian. Unlike Mondrian, who sought order in abstract lines and planes, Ader uses real flowers and applies simple actions to reveal small, subtle changes. In his approach, minimalism takes on a personal and almost poetic quality.

Rein Wolfs, Director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam: “The donation of Untitled (Flower Work) is a valuable enrichment of our collection. With his simple and at the same time powerful visual language, Bas Jan Ader continues to inspire new generations of artists and visitors. We are very grateful to Erik Ader for this gift.”

Bas Jan Ader was born in 1942 in Winschoten, the Netherlands, and disappeared in 1975 during a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a small sailboat as part of his work In Search of the Miraculous. After his disappearance, he grew to become one of the most important Dutch artists of the twentieth century. Although he developed his career largely in California, his work remained connected to European traditions. As a key figure in romantic conceptualism, he—along with Ger van Elk and William Leavitt—was at the foundation of a new approach in which photography, film, and performance played a central role. With the donation of Untitled (Flower Work), his work now gains a visible place in the Stedelijk’s collection.

Currently, a retrospective exhibition of Bas Jan Ader’s work is on view at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. In 2006, Rein Wolfs curated the last retrospective of his work in the Netherlands at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Untitled (Flower Work) will be presented later this year as part of the collection presentation Everyday, Someday and Other Stories at the Stedelijk.