"...The works gathered here—paintings, drawings, wooden sculptures, and various ephemera—dealt with the affects of auctioneering. This focus was most clearly illustrated in the artist’s canvases: See, for instance, the charisma of an auctioneer at the rostrum (Auction, 2007); the mass of bidders filling pews and benches, vying for attention (Auction Crowd, 1990); the resold objects themselves held aloft, ostensibly desirable, often detritus (Auctioneer, Recorder and Assistant, 2000). ... Of course, such items were less important to Byrd than the figures themselves, as evinced by the frequent alterations between study and final product. He sought instead a stock of gestures hiding behind particulars, a Pathosformel of buying and selling, the alchemistry of exchange. One of the artist’s last works, Pots and Pans, 2013, revealed this reduction in form. Here, the outstretched hands and open mouths of numerous people become virtually abstract against a bare ground.” - Jonathan Odden
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