André Cadere
André Cadere
Round Bar of Wood B 12304000 (Barre de bois rond B 12304000).
1976
Painted wood, 52 segments
Total dimensions 179×3.5×3.5 cm Centre national des arts plastiques
On deposit at Collection Lambert, Avignon FNAC 2013-0234
At first it may seem paradoxical that André Cadere, who called his series of round bars of wood Peinture sans fin (Painting Without End), would also state that there was no development in his work. However, the system he invented for them using the same two types of permutations (which he called A and B) in the order of colors meant that even before he made it, each series was indeed finite, closed. The implementation of an error in each was an important way to bridge art and life, yet it was neither the craft nor the permutation of colors that constituted development, at least in the artist’s understanding: he saw the development or trajectory of his work in its changing position within the art system. Cadere rightly observed that an art that challenges the limits and boundaries of the art system would naturally also keep shifting.
Although each of the bars was unique, Cadere nevertheless saw them as constellations; part of a single system that was finite yet vast and ongoing, even extending beyond what he was able to do in his lifetime.
SK