Max Leiß was born in Bonn (DE) and lives in Basel and Marseille. His work emanates from a sculptural practice. He combines the removal of material, the formative reduction of an existing mass, with plastic construction, molding and casting techniques or coloration. Starting points can be quotidian observations or found objects from the street which he takes to his studio and subjects them to sculptural transformations. In the process, these objects leave their context and yet remember their function. They are disassembled into elements, painted or sanded, perhaps enlarged or partly reconstructed in another material, laid out in space, hung up, assigned to other objects. Old and new, foreign and own actions leave their traces. In the end, raw, somewhat lost forms remain. Through the formal reduction and the removal of the previous references, their symbolic quality becomes all the more apparent. The original, immediate connection between the object and its use, origin and meaning has been blurred. Thus, these sculptures rest completely with themselves and at the same time become playful elements relating to space, to each other, and the viewer.