Iris Häussler

Iris studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany and immigrated to Canada in 2001.Iris Häussler has explored many ways to offer art experiences at the fringe or outside the White Cube. She is interested in creating inclusive art environments open to everybody, rather than catering to the art market only. This has a long history: she created her very first site specific art-installation for a group exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1988, choosing the women’s toilets of all places. Since then, she has exhibited in basements, trailers, garages, coach houses, apartments, churches, chapels, stores, hotel-rooms, industrial buildings and historic houses as well as in international museums, galleries and Biennials.

Häussler’s work is found in international collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Städtische Sammlung im Lenbachhaus, Munich and the Goetz Collection, Munich, Germany. She also held a guest professorship at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich in 1999 and has given talks about her work in universities and art institutions in Canada, the USA, and Europe. Her work received awards and grants including the Karl-Hofer Prize (Berlin), the Kunstfonds Fellowship (Bonn), the Toronto Arts Council, the Chalmers Arts Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.