'5 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now' - Hugh Hayden: Huey in the New York Times

29 July 2021

A sinister streak runs through the work of Hugh Hayden. His precise, cleanly executed sculptures, evincing his training as an architect, are saturated with pointed critiques of prevailing American institutions. In “Huey,” his third solo exhibition with Lisson Gallery, Hayden shows the outsized impact of two such institutions — organized religion and athletics — on Black identity and masculinity. Sparsely arranged across three rooms, the sculptures — all from 2021 — use a minimal but careful selection of materials to reinterpret familiar objects in a Gothic sensibility.

The final space features seven sculptures, carved from Texan and Gabon ebonies. Though the slanted, skewed iterations of doors and chairs draw apt comparisons to the art of Robert Gober, they veer sharply from this legacy in their centering Black visual culture, as indicated by their surface color and the references in their titles — a small black gavel, titled “Uncle Phil,” nods to James Avery’s character on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” With this attention to detail, Hayden cinches his spot as a noteworthy figure in the lineage of American conceptualism.

Read the full review in The New York Times

Hugh Hayden: Huey is on view through 13 August.