André Cadere was a Polish-born Romanian artist whose work radically reimagined the boundaries of Conceptual Art. Best known for his barres de bois bond (Round Wooden Bars, 1970–1978), Cadere developed an artistic methodology grounded in repetition, error and mobility, which redefined the relationship between art, artist and audience.

Born to a Romanian diplomat, Cadere experienced political upheaval early in life, as his family faced persecution following the rise of the communist regime. Despite these challenges, he began laying the foundations of his artistic practice between 1960 and 1966, first in Romania and later in Paris, where he relocated permanently in 1967. During these years, he developed an original conception of space in which interlocking planes create a disorienting mise en abyme. In Paris, Cadere had said that it was only within the cosmopolitanism of the contemporary art circuit—in “international situations”—that he did not feel like a “stranger.” There, he joined the international op-art scene, embracing a unique combination of folk and psychedelia that stood in contrast to the highly mathematical works by the likes of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV) then in vogue.

Combining abstraction with figures, landscapes and biomorphic and cellular forms to disorienting effects, Cadere’s early paintings indicate his later understanding of his work in terms of “pure visuality.” By 1969, Cadere began to push beyond the limits of the canvas by attaching polychrome half-rods to the work’s surface in an effort to introduce the notion of volume. These experiments led to the creation of square wooden bars and, by 1972, to his most iconic form: the barres de bois rond. The series was first conceived in 1972, and Cadere pursued these forms with complete dedication for the last seven years of his short career. Composed using an idiosyncratic mathematical sequence to determine the order of the colors (including one intentional error) and number of segments, the hand-carved bars were discrete manifestations of a single overarching procedure that allowed for only so many possible variations. 

Referred to as “Peinture sans fin” (“painting without end” or “unlimited painting”), the bars’ total length followed the constraint that they be lightweight enough for the artist to carry, with their shape allowing for varied orientations and modes of presentation. With the aim for his work to exist outside the traditional circuits of contemporary art, the bars were brought, both invited and uninvited, into museums and galleries, and carried almost exclusively by the artist from 1973 on as he moved through his daily life. He appeared with his bars at the shows of Robert Ryman, Sol LeWitt, On Kawara, among others, and sometimes faced removal for his unsanctioned intrusion. His performative role as an outsider, or self-proclaimed “squatter,” was a critical component of his practice. 

André Cadere (b. 1934, Warsaw; d. 1978, Paris) was the subject of a solo exhibition at Ortuzar, André Cadere: 1965-1978, in 2022. CAB Foundation, Brussels organized a retrospective—the André Cadere, Expanding Art—in 2023 (2023). Recent major solo exhibitions include André Cadere: Pas à pas, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2018); Textual Pieces, Photographs, Ephemera, Galerie Hervé Bize, Nancy, France (2018); André Cadere: Conceptual Documents 1972–1978, Art Encounters, Timisoara, Romania (2015); Documenting Cadere 1972–1978, Modern Art Oxford; Mu.ZEE, Ostende, Belgium; Artists Space, New York (2013); and André Cadere: Peinture sans fin, Musée d’Art moderne de Paris; Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany; and Bonnefanten Museum Maastricht, The Netherlands (2007–2008). Cadere’s work is in the permanent collections of public institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’art Moderne de Paris; Tate Modern, London; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp; MAMCO, Geneva; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others.