Victor Chakravarty
Re-Enactment of Bas Jan Ader’s Fall, Broken Fall, and Studies on the Road to a New Neo-Plasticism
Performance concept
Three performers to activate Bas Jan Ader’s fall pieces Fall, Broken Fall, and Studies on the Road to a New Neo-Plasticism. Bas Jan Ader made fading an art form. Trees appear in several of his works. His father was executed in a forest for helping Jews escape the Netherlands during the occupation. Perhaps this was a way for Bas Jan Ader to reengage with this trauma through a voluntary fall, using humor as a tool—as a voluntary accident.
In a way, Bas Jan Ader simulates, through absurdist aesthetics, a fallen tree, thereby emphasizing the fragility of certain geographies. By reactivating this piece, I invite a dialogue between natural and human fragility in the age of accelerated climate change. There is a geological term called ghost forests, used to describe forests where trees are killed, often due to saltwater intrusion. Bas Jan Ader worked with disappearance and hauntology. In his final work, Ocean Wave, he became a ghost lost at sea, as his body was never recovered.
5th of October / 9 – 10 am / 2026
CUNY – Kingsborough
2001 Oriental Blvd
Brooklyn, NY 11235
North lawn of the A building
Curated by Midori Yamamura
This performance is part of a special ceremony celebrating Kingsborough Community College’s collaboration with Trees New York to restore the 250 trees lost during Hurricane Sandy, featuring a donation of 70 new trees and the unveiling of our first five cherry blossom trees.