Breathe


Max Streicher

March 15 to June 10, 2008

Preview: March 15, 2008

Location: Gallery Maskara

Breathe

Inflatables conjure memories of play and innocence yet it also brings forth the fragility and impermanence of existence. Children are at once fascinated by balloons – soap bubbles and air filled toys - enamored by their lightness, enchanted by their buoyancy, and devastated when they break…. I first encountered these weightless and playful works in 2006 on a trip to South America and was immediately drawn by the wonder and tragedy that the works evoke. Max Streicher has taken the inflatable, and rehabilitated it by creating tension between the liveliness of the medium and an experience that is both colossal and considerate. Streicher combines industrial fans and simple valve mechanisms with light weight materials which recall, quite eerily, the sensation of breath. His work provokes strong, spontaneous, and deeply psychological reactions in people of all ages and backgrounds