Curatorial Note:
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
Artist's Statement:
Inflatables have had an important place in my work since 1989. In most of these sculptures and installations I have used industrial fans and simple valve mechanisms to animate sewn forms with lifelike gestures. Most of these works have been made of lightweight and papery fabrics such as Tyvek or nylon spinnaker. The weightlessness of these materials allows them to respond with surprising subtlety to the action of air within and around them.
Generally inflatables are an expression of naive optimism. In an art context they signal popular culture, anti-art and irony, I play with and against these expectations. The movement of air within them recalls our own sensation of breath – and of breathlessness. Thus, the force that animates the work is the same elemental, powerful and tenuous force that animates us. These works are as much about deflation as inflation; as much about absence, shrinking and vulnerability as they are about the robust occupation of space. My 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.
