Max Streicher
Pneumatic Sculpture / Installations
Biography
Max Streicher is a sculptor and installation artist from Alberta, now residing in Toronto, Canada. Since 1989 he has worked extensively with inflatable technology in kinetic sculptures and installation works. Max Streicher's work was included in the Sixth Beijing International Art Biennial. He has shown widely across Canada in museums and public galleries such as the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Art Gallery of Alberta. He has been part of group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto and The Power Plant Centre for Contemporary Art. He has completed several site-related projects across Canada, Europe, Asia and South America.
Max Streicher was a founding member of NetherMind, a collective of sculptors who, since 1991, have presented exhibitions of their works in conversation with alternative exhibition sites, such as abandoned factories. Streicher served on the Board of Directors of Mercer Union: A Centre for Contemporary Visual Art in Toronto from 1992 – 1998. Since 2012, he has served on the Arts and Music Committee of the St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto coordinating site-related exhibitions. In 2007 Streicher was a presenter at Take a Deep Breath, a Symposium hosted by the Tate Modern, London, UK.
My works typically consist of sewn forms that are filled and animated by the force of air. Like balloons, these works exist in a state of tension: They too are air pressurized against a taut membrane, held in a balance that is fragile and inevitably lost. Through the use of delicate materials, detailed and life-like rendering of forms and the dynamics of their placement, I seek ways to complicate this typically benign medium, pushing its inherent tensions toward the metaphysical. My works are as much about deflation as inflation; as much about absence, shrinking and vulnerability as they are about the robust and playful occupation of space. My work with the inflatable medium is about moving the viewer through an experience characterized by irony and play toward a physical connection to his or her most vital forces.
Collections
Streicher's inflatable works are in the collections of museums such as the Albertina Museum in Vienna, The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Japan, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, The Art Gallery of Windsor, in Ontario, and the University of Toronto Art Centre.
About the Work
Contact: max@maxstreicher.com