Auction Block (2010)

Materials: ceramic, audio of fictional auction, playback equipment, mirror, wood, wood chips. Dimensions variable.

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Like malleable clay, desire flows and takes the shape of its object. The specifics mutate, but the elemental force is eternal.

Desire, frustration, rumor, value, celebrity, loss, relic, trash, beauty, mobs, glory, dirt, eternity, fabrication, solitude, truth, emptiness, and clutter–all flow and collide in the “Auction Block” installation.  Visitors weave among rows of long sawhorse tables filled with ceramic drapes that seem to conceal items of great value. Wood chips cover the floor as if one has entered a barn hastily prepared for an estate auction.  The entire scene is eternally replicated by mirrored walls.  Yet the stillness of this mysterious space is disrupted and energized by disembodied sounds of a raucous auction—voices of auctioneers, bidders, random audience members, and an “historian” telling the juicy story behind each object as it comes up for sale and attempting to persuade us of their great market value.

Click here to view the entire published catalog: Auction Block – A Zoé Strecker Installation