Max Siedentopf organized a project and book called Aversive Adhesives which looks the other direction and explores the icky, the disturbing, the unsettling, or in some way 'aversive' images that repel upon sight. Get the irony? The stickers that repel us? The book shines a light on a number of collaborators (Roger Ballen, Olaf Breuning, Jesús Monterde, Thomas Mailaender, Yumiko Utsu, Jaimie Warren, Beni Bischof, Parker Day, Thomas Rousset, Pieter Hugo, Jaap Scheeren, Andy Kania, Olya Oleinic, Chris Maggio and International Neighbourhood Publishing) who approach photography in new and unusual ways, who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty to create images that will stick with you.

Aside from his new book, Max also released a new photo series which offers instructions for world peace and a new music video which was recently released at Galerie Kernweine in Stuttgart, Germany. Both are worth taking a look at - trust you me! Find out more juicy deets about max in the Q+A below:

Who is the guy in your series Instructions For World Peace? What is his name and relation to you?
I believe that achieving world peace first of all starts with changing yourself and your own habits, but as I obviously couldn’t use myself for the series, I decided to use the closest model to myself, my dad. Luckily he is also a whole lot more handsome, wiser, successful and funnier than me.

Do you always forward on chain mails for good luck? Do you avoid heated discussions? Do you live by these Instructions for World Peace?
I try to as much as I can, but I don’t always succeed, which most probably explains why we don’t have world peace yet…sorry.

How many sausages and cheese puffs did you buy for the making of your music video released at Galerie Kernwein? Where there any casualties in the making of the video? (any chin burn on the treadmill?)
…there was initially a drone carrying a bunch of pizza boxes, it didn’t end well for the drone (and the people close by).

The News section of your website is super exciting, impressive and up to date and you seem to have a lot of momentum going - how do you get and then keep this momentum? Any advice to other artists and creatives?
Have fun having fun.

You juggle a lot of different mediums and artistic endeavors.....can you juggle actual balls?
I wish! That would finally be, for once, a good skill to have.

What do you call yourself?
Max.

What do others call you?
Max.

Do you consider yourself competitive?
Yes, definitely. From age 12 I was swimming on a competitive level with 6 hour training sessions a day, waking up in the morning at 4.15h for the first training session always with the aim to compete at international competitions like the African Championships and later World Championships. All those thousands of hours swimming up and down and trying to beat my best definitely shaped my competitive side quite a bit.

Are you scared of failure?
I don’t believe that failure exists when speaking about creative work. It is far too subjective. What the one person might hate, the next one might love. I do however try to embrace things that feel a bit “off” or go into the opposite direction of “perfect” because you tend to find more interesting results over on that side.