Hugh Hayden
(b. 1983)Hugh Hayden transforms natural materials, cultural references, and familiar objects to wrestle with and illuminate the human condition.
Biography
Raised in Dallas, Hayden undertook landscaping projects in his family’s backyard that eventually led him to pursue architecture during his undergraduate studies at Cornell University.
After working in architecture for a decade, he shifted to a full-time career as a sculptor. His interest in natural materials and the layered histories that arise from different visual forms remains at the center of his practice. Wood is his primary medium, as he uses materials like discarded tree trunks and souvenir African sculptures to create new composite forms reflective of complex cultural backgrounds.
Many of Hayden’s works, from church pews covered with spikes to a football helmet with internal bristles, critique the academic, economic, and social inequities that have defined the United States since its establishment. His wooden creations call to mind the work of David Hammons, Robert Gober, and Charles Ray. They are familiar and foreign, and hostile—a juxtaposition that speaks to many of the disparities he highlights. As Hayden himself says, “All of my work is about the American dream, whether it’s a table that’s hard to sit at or a thorny school desk. It’s a dream that is seductive, but difficult to inhabit.”[1] Accompanied by incisive titles to his works, he crafts detailed meditations on experience, memory, and history that call social dynamics and longstanding systems into question.
Hayden earned a BArch from Cornell University and MFA from Columbia University. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Princeton University Art Museum and White Columns, New York. He has completed residences at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2011); Socrates Sculpture Park (2012); and Glenfiddich (2014). His work first entered the Studio Museum’s collection in 2018.
[1 ]Arthur Lubow, “Hugh Hayden Explores the Thorny Sides of the American Dream,” W Magazine, October 27, 2021, wmagazine.com/culture/hugh-hayden-artist-ica-interview.
Hugh Hayden
(b. 1983)Hugh Hayden transforms natural materials, cultural references, and familiar objects to wrestle with and illuminate the human condition.
Biography
Raised in Dallas, Hayden undertook landscaping projects in his family’s backyard that eventually led him to pursue architecture during his undergraduate studies at Cornell University.
After working in architecture for a decade, he shifted to a full-time career as a sculptor. His interest in natural materials and the layered histories that arise from different visual forms remains at the center of his practice. Wood is his primary medium, as he uses materials like discarded tree trunks and souvenir African sculptures to create new composite forms reflective of complex cultural backgrounds.
Many of Hayden’s works, from church pews covered with spikes to a football helmet with internal bristles, critique the academic, economic, and social inequities that have defined the United States since its establishment. His wooden creations call to mind the work of David Hammons, Robert Gober, and Charles Ray. They are familiar and foreign, and hostile—a juxtaposition that speaks to many of the disparities he highlights. As Hayden himself says, “All of my work is about the American dream, whether it’s a table that’s hard to sit at or a thorny school desk. It’s a dream that is seductive, but difficult to inhabit.”[1] Accompanied by incisive titles to his works, he crafts detailed meditations on experience, memory, and history that call social dynamics and longstanding systems into question.
Hayden earned a BArch from Cornell University and MFA from Columbia University. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Princeton University Art Museum and White Columns, New York. He has completed residences at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2011); Socrates Sculpture Park (2012); and Glenfiddich (2014). His work first entered the Studio Museum’s collection in 2018.
[1 ]Arthur Lubow, “Hugh Hayden Explores the Thorny Sides of the American Dream,” W Magazine, October 27, 2021, wmagazine.com/culture/hugh-hayden-artist-ica-interview.