Iris Häussler: He Named Her Amber
Iris Häussler, David Moos, Sarah Milroy and Martha Baillie
Art Gallery of Ontario
184 pp 80 col. ill. 9 x 7 in hardcover
978-1-89424368-1
$40.00 Can. $45.00 U.S. (32 €)
December 2011
In 2007 Iris Häussler was invited to create a work for the inauguration of the newly transformed Art Gallery of Ontario. She proposed an elaborate in situ piece entitled He Named Her Amber located in The Grange, a 19th century mansion now part of the Gallery. Häussler presented a complex narrative around a young Irish woman who had been hired as a maid at the Grange in 1828. Mysteriously bequeathed papers revealed that Mary O’Shea had over the years hidden objects and documents in and around the house. Subsequently, Archaeological Services Ontario (ASO) found a veritable Pandora's box of items and, since opening in 2008, thousands of visitors have toured the site. Only after the event did the artist and the Gallery reveal to the world that He Named Her Amber was a commissioned work of art and not an historical find.
Thematically structured around Narrative, Disclosure and Analysis, this profusely illustrated publication documents a daring public artwork with essays and comments from artist, curator, critics, and from visitors with sharply divided views. By making art based upon direct experience rather than theoretical discourse, and by questioning the traditional authority of the museum, Häussler’s work aims to redefine and reignite the relationship between art, artist and spectator. In Opening Gambits: Essays on Art and Philosophy (Key Porter Books, 2009), Mark Kingwell calls her work "haptic conceptual".
Iris Häussler is known for her site specific installations in which she constructs fictitious personae in real environments. Locations have included rented apartments, hotel rooms and a residential home. Born in Germany, Iris Häussler lives and works in Toronto.
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