Texas born and New York based artist Hugh Hayden’s practice considers the anthropomorphization of the natural world as a visceral lens for exploring the human condition. At deCordova, his original outdoor commission titled Huff and a Puff will be a slanted replica of the one-room home where Henry David Thoreau lived in relative isolation and wrote Walden-Or A Life in the Woods in 1845. Thoreau’s wood and brick cabin is a modern-day pilgrimage site: a symbol of American self-reliance, spirituality, political activism, and ecological consciousness. Hayden plans for the entire cabin—every shingle, windowpane, and brick—to dramatically slant toward the viewer, conveying a surreal, tensioned force upon this iconic home. The commission advances Hayden’s innovations as a sculptor who forges conversations around the myths and markers of American identity.
About Hugh Hayden
Hugh Hayden was born in Dallas, Texas in 1983 and lives and works in New York. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2021–22), Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey (2020) and he has had major outdoor installations at Madison Square Park (2021) and Brooklyn Bridge Park (2021). Hayden’s work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Princeton University Art Museum; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.
Hugh Hayden: Huff and a Puff is commissioned by Art & the Landscape, an initiative of The Trustees. Lead support for Art at The Trustees is provided by Mr. Richard M. Coffman and Mrs. Gabrielle C.F. Coffman. This project is also supported by Lisson Gallery, Elissa and William Warner, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Next Generation Fund of the Roy A. Hunt Foundation, Marjorie and Nick Greville, Janet and David Offensend, Kathleen O’Hara and Malcolm Walsh, and Valerie Talland and Nagesh Mahanthappa.
Main Image Caption: Hugh Hayden, sketch for Huff and a Puff, 2022 © Hugh Hayden