Bas Jan Ader: I'm Too Sad to Tell You

13 Jun-14 Sep 2025

Overview

Acknowledging the crucial role artists play in influencing and shaping other artistic practices, ‘The Artist’s Eye’ series asks those exhibiting in Gallery 1 to invite an artist of influence to present work in Gallery 2. In this instalment Mohammed Sami has selected the seminal work I’m Too Sad to Tell You (1971) by artist Bas Jan Ader to be presented.  

Working during the late 1960s until his premature death in 1975, Bas Jan Ader produced a small, yet influential body of work that continues to resonate. Through performance, photography and film, Ader drew on vaudeville and early cinema to bridge the gap between physical expression and the cool rationality of contemporary conceptualism. His oeuvre fuses the melancholic and absurd, often using the act of falling to explore ideas of failure and loss of control. 

Presented in Gallery 2 is Ader’s silent 16mm film I’m Too Sad to Tell You (1971). The three-minute black and white film focuses on the artist’s face as he cries. While Ader refuses to tell the viewer the reason behind his tears, by relaying this emotional gesture on camera, the work becomes a confessional act. Ader thus creates a tension between withholding information and baring all, between raw emotion and self-conscious performance. Produced during the politically charged context of the Vietnam War and its consequent protests, the work explores both the power and shortcomings of staging emotion.