In Conversation: Hugh Hayden

Inspired by everyday objects and vernacular furniture, Hugh Hayden’s visceral sculptures explore the American dream. Seeking to “transform materials from our everyday lived experience,” Hayden’s work challenges stereotypes and beliefs about class, race, and gender.

Join Hayden in conversation with WBUR’s Arielle Gray for a discussion of the artist’s work and practice as embodied in the comprehensive survey at the Rose Art Museum, as well the Boston-area site-specific engagements: Gulf Stream (2022) presented by the Boston Public Art Triennial, and Huff and a Puff (2023) at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Arielle Gray is a Boston-based journalist, writer, and artist. She is a reporter for WBUR, Boston's NPR station, where she covers Black and brown communities through the lens of art and culture. She has written for NPR, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Boston Art Review, and ZORA Magazine. As an artist, Gray's practice examines the liminal space between her various identities—queer, Black, and neurodivergent—to find places of possibility and creation. In 2020, she received a Create Well Fund Award and was named a 2021 A4A artist-in-residence at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts. In 2022, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum named her the 2022–2024 Luminary Artist, where Gray conceived the Future Archive Project, a community audio and photography exhibition highlighting Black LGBTQIA+ individuals in Greater Boston.

Hugh Hayden (b. Dallas, Texas, 1983) lives and works in New York City. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University. Recent solo exhibitions include Boogey Men at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami, FL, which traveled to the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, TX; Hugh Hayden: Creation Myths, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ; and Hugh Hayden, White Columns, New York, NY. Recent group exhibitions include Forest of Dreams: Contemporary Tree Sculpture, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI (2023), and NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2023). Hayden holds positions on advisory councils at Columbia University School of the Arts, Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, and Cornell College of Architecture Art and Planning. His work is part of public collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, USA; Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami, FL, USA; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ; Smart Museum, Chicago, IL and more.

This program, generously sponsored by Wolf Kahn Foundation, is held in conjunction with the exhibition Hugh Hayden: Home Work, September 18, 2024–June 1, 2025, and is presented in partnership with the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum and the Boston Public Art Triennial.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

WBUR CitySpace, 890 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, United States