Max Streicher is a sculptor and installation artist from Alberta, now residing in Toronto. Since 1989 he has worked extensively with inflatable technology in kinetic sculptures and installation works.
Generally inflatables are an expression of naive optimism. In an art context they signal popular culture, anti-art and irony. Max plays with and against these expectations. The movement of air within his forms recalls our own sensation of breath – of breathlessness, of holding our breath, etc.
His work exists in moments of kinesthesia, when the movement of air within a form causes something to stir within the physical being of the viewer. This response is to more than just the obvious action of inflation and the robust occupation of space. What Max feels is even more moving is the recognition of deflation, shrinking, vulnerability, silence and dying.
His choice of extremely light and papery materials enhances this sense of absence and transience, of the nearly not there at all. The work with the inflatable medium is about moving the viewer from a playful and ironic headspace toward a physical connection to his or her most vital forces.
Max has completed several international site-related projects in such places as Taichung, Taiwan, Erfurt, Germany, Reims, France and Aachen, Germany, Madrid, Spain and Mumbai, India. His inflatable works are in the collections such as that of the ESSL Museum, Vienna, and Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton and the University of Toronto.
Images courtesy of Max Streicher
Discover: maxstreicher.com
