Artist Rendering © Hugh Hayden, Courtesy Lisson Gallery
Hugh Hayden
Permanent Commission on San Giacomo
From 7 May 2026
Commissioned by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and unveiled on May 7, 2026, during the Venice Biennale, Hugh Hayden’s monumental new work, a full-scale, slanted chapel skewed forty degrees forward, rises on San Giacomo. The brick structure, topped with a green metal roof and a ten-meter steeple reminiscent of regional campaniles, blends American and Italian architectural vernaculars into a universal archetype of belief, power, and endurance. Within, an inhabitable sanctuary with pews and a reimagined crucifix is conceived as a space for reflection. Above, the tower houses a locally cast bell with a founding inscription of “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” a resonant invocation of The Three Little Pigs. The chapel builds on previous works such as Huff and a Puff (2023), his slanted cabin modelled after Henry David Thoreau’s own, and extends Hayden’s ongoing engagement with fairy tales and fables as narrative frameworks. These stories, rooted in moral instruction and psychological formation, inform the work’s heightened sense of tension and embodiment at an immersive scale.