For his show “Hughmans,” New York sculptor Hugh Hayden has converted Lisson Gallery’s snazzy, pristine Chelsea space into a public restroom. Visitors circumambulate the gallery, opening gray stall doors and finding sculptures inside. The playful intervention offers rare moments of privacy in a bustling city—and thus encourages mischief in turn. As I spoke to the artist outside one of the stalls, we noticed that the door had been locked, and peeped two pairs of feet poking out underneath. Surely the duo could hear us discuss our desire to get inside, but did not unlock the door for another ten minutes or so. This devilment left the artist delighted. “There aren’t enough public restrooms in Chelsea,” he said, smiling, while we were locked out.
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Hayden’s sculptures are meticulously handcrafted. He enlists a wide range of materials—rattan, brass, wood—and pairs moments of humor with heaviness. By tucking his new sculptures away into stalls (all works 2024), he manages to fit a surprising amount of them into a gallery—this many would have otherwise felt crowded and overwhelming. Below, the architect-cum-artist opens doors on a few favorites.
For me, the 17 stalls are like a book. You can’t see all the sculptures at once—you have to open the door, or turn the page. While all the works can stand alone, I wanted the show to be an experience. Sometimes, doors get left open so you can get a glimpse. I tried to create both public and intimate moments with each work.
The show brings together all these different materials and different concepts. People often ask if the show is a survey, because there are so many different works. But the thing that unites them all is a certain attention to craftsmanship and detail.
The show is called “Hugmans” with an “S.” It’s like the sequel to the show that I did last fall, at Lisson in LA. It had similar works the bathroom stalls, but that show had more of Hollywood lean: guns and silicone and prosthetics, even a movie director chair. I’m always exploring the material and the cultural significance of objects.
Some of the works have humor to them, but that’s just one way of looking at it. Another person might see something very different. Sometimes, the lives of other people can seem so extreme and surreal that they become funny and humorous. For another viewer, that same work might be more of a mirror. Someone told me American Gothic (2024) [two skeletons with tools for extremities] reminded them of their grandmother, who was always working and, never being able to rest, was always busy trying to put food on the table for her family. I liked hearing that someone could see themselves inhabit this work’s world. I’m thinking about the American Dream, about capitalism, and about how the idea of usefulness can permeate someone’s existence, in a very manual-labor type of way.
I made Plywood using a process of bent wood lamination: very thin plies of wood get glued together and then stripped, so that they can become bendable. I created these rib cages using a lot of different types of wood. I was thinking about plywood being a whole made of many parts, like the melting pot that is New York: these upper bodies are packed together and intertwined. All the rib cages are made of different woods in different colors: white oak, padauk, cherry, ebony, black walnut, ash, and so on. It’s like a salad of wood, all treated the same way.
The rib cages hang on the kind of stainless-steel structure you’d find framing a subway seat: I wanted it to appear as if we just bought these racks from the MTA, though actually, we made them. As an artist, I’m always recreating my vision of reality.
Sleepover is the only work that’s about a bathroom. It’s a two-person urinal, and these sort of melting pots (Black Don’t Crack 1 and 2) are mounted on the wall and reflected in the mirror.
Walden is a skewed desk made of black walnut with a book on it. The spine of the book says The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, but the actual interior of the book is Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854). The pages inside are also skewed 40 degrees. Douglass and Thoreau were born [in 1818 and 1817, respectively]. Both were self-made men, but with very different life experiences.
For Harlem, I hung these gold cooking pot forms from another subway rack. It’s part of a body of work I’m making about America as this melting pot, invoking America’s African origins by way of a physical pots. Some of these gold-plated cast iron skillets have African masks that were cast into them. There are also gold-plated copper pots with brass instruments braised into them. Together, there are seven pairs of musicians with instruments. I was thinking about the Harlem Renaissance and the creation of jazz, but also just visual pleasure of like gold reflecting. The closer the pieces are to each other, the deeper the gold reflections get.
At some point, I realized that Pinocchio is called Pinocchio because he’s made of pine. “Pino” is pine in Italian. So, if you change the type of wood he’s made of, his name changes, too. This one is made of black walnut, so he’s Nocecchio. I wanted to make him look alive; his fingers are grasping the pedestal. He’s wearing a sailor suit. I think he’s very cute.
You can see part of Idol with the door closed, from above and below. I have an ongoing body of work involving basketball goals that morph in different materials; often they are woven out of wicker, so they’re truly baskets, this ancient form made by many cultures. Typically, they are woven from materials indigenous to a given area. This net morphs into a body: two legs with this corseted waist. I wove this piece entirely myself—it took almost 5 months. I find most people refer to it using feminine pronouns. The LA show was much more about masculinity. A gay club had been the previous tenant of the space, so I folded that into the narrative. But this is “Hughmans” plural, so it’s more expansive, in terms of things like gender, perhaps.