Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous

When Bas Jan Ader's boat, Ocean Wave, was found unmanned and partially submerged 150 miles off the coast of Ireland by a Spanish fishing vessel in 1976, it was taken to La Coruña for investigation. Days later, the boat was stolen and the cult of Ader, whose body was never recovered, and who was thought by many to have staged this incident, was truly cemented. In this volume, Marion van Wijk and Koos Dalstra, who spent 10 years investigating this unsolved mystery, reproduce the entire police report in facsimile. They also include many pages of eerie written documentation and transcriptions of interviews they conducted during their decade of intensive sleuthing. The report has 74 pages: it begins on April 27, 1976 and ends on February 1, 1977. It relates the history of the Ocean Wave from the discovery of the vessel to the closure of the case. This book is a reprint of the earlier edition from Veenman Publishers with additional research included.

Bas Jan Ader was born in Winschoten, the Netherlands in 1942. He taught at various institutions after graduating from the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in 1965, including the University of California, Irvine. The 1975 work, part two in a performance piece titled "In Search of the Miraculous," is his most influential performance piece that continues to provoke debate; Ader attempted a singlehanded west-east crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. The boat was found wrecked but the artist's body has never been recovered.

When Bas Jan Ader's boat, Ocean Wave, was found unmanned and partially submerged 150 miles off the coast of Ireland by a Spanish fishing vessel in 1976, it was taken to La Coru

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