Truth or Dare: Three perspectives on two projects by Iris Häussler
Panel discussion organized in conjunction with the exhibition Honest Threads
Thursday, March 5, 6:30 PM, Free
Honest Ed’s, 581 Bloor Street West
Featuring: Martha Baillie (Writer, Toronto), Shelley Hornstein (Professor of Architectural History, Urban and Visual Culture, York University), David Moos (Curator, Contemporary Art , Art Gallery of Ontario)
In a crossover between art, literature and theatre, Iris Häussler creates immersive environments that explore personal histories, either real or fictional. Integrating found and fabricated archives and artifacts in her installations, Häussler raises questions about the demarcation between art and everyday life. Engaging two of Toronto’s historically charged sites, the AGO’s Grange and Honest Ed’s, her current projects both challenge and bring new light to these landmarks, infusing them with new stories and renewing our affective attachment to them. Truth or Dare brings together three perspectives to discuss Häussler’s unique artistic approach, focusing primarily on these two projects.
Lending his expertise on Häussler’s work, AGO Curator David Moos will broadly discuss her artistic practice while focusing on the two current interventions that both emulate and subvert museum methodologies. Professor Shelley Hornstein will address the notion of memory as connected to the urban contexts in which the installations are presented. Martha Baillie will offer a writer’s point of view on Häussler’s narrative strategies that become frameworks for stories to be collectively generated and shared.
Panelists’ Biographies
Martha Baillie has studied history and modern languages (French and Russian) at the University of Edinburgh, completing her studies at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Toronto. As a student, Baillie became involved in theatre, continuing to act after graduation. In 1981, her travel experiences through Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Burma, Nepal and India inspired her to switch her focus to writing. Baillie’s first novel, My Sister Esther, was published in 1995, followed by Madame Balashovskaya’s Apartment in 1999. The later was also published in Hungary and Germany. In 2006, her third novel, The Shape I Gave You came out with Knopf Canada and was a national bestseller. Her forthcoming novel, The Incident Report will appear with Pedlar Press in Spring 2009. Baillie’s poems have been published in journals including Descant, Prairie Fire and The Antigonish Review, and her non-fiction piece on the work of Iris Häussler, The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach was published by Brick magazine (Summer 2007).
Shelley Hornstein is Professor of Architectural History, Urban and Visual Culture at York University. She is published widely on the examination of memory, place and spatial politics in architectural and urban sites. Some of the themes she is exploring are starlets and starchitecture, Google Earth, Jewish topographies, architectural tourism and curated places, malls and streetscapes of fashion. Her books include: Capital Culture: A Reader on Modernist Legacies, State Institutions, and the Value(s) of Art (McGill-University Press, 2000); Image and Remembrance: Representation and The Holocaust (Indiana University Press, 2002), and Impossible Images: Contemporary Art after the Holocaust (NYU Press, 2003). The recipient of many prestigious awards, she is currently completing a book entitled Losing Site: Buildings and Places, Lost and Found.
David Moos is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, where he recently led the reinstallation of the contemporary collection in new galleries designed by Frank Gehry. At the AGO he has organized the exhibitions The Shape of Colour: Excursions in Colour Field Art, 1950-2005 and Wallworks: Contemporary Artists and Place. Previously, he was curator at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, where he organized the traveling exhibitions Jonathan Lasker: Selective Identity, William Wegman: Fashion Photographs, and Radcliffe Bailey: The Magic City as well as numerous exhibitions in the Museum's Perspectives series, including those with Willie Cole, Jessica Diamond, Lonnie Holley, Luis Jimenez, Beatriz Milhazes and Lawrence Weiner. He holds a Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University and is a contributing editor to Art Papers and Art US.
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| Location: | Honest Ed's, 581 Bloor Street West |