Long-term installation by Hugh Hayden goes on view at deCordova Sculpture Park

9 January 2024

Commissioned by Art & the Landscape, an initiative of The Trustees of Reservations, Hugh Hayden's new installation Huff and a Puff is now installed in the gardens of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA.

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 is 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's cabin—every shingle, windowpane, and brick – dramatically slants 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.

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, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Next Generation Fund of the Roy A. Hunt Foundation, an anonymous donor, Dr. Susan M. Culman, Marjorie and Nick Greville, Janet and David Offensend, Kathleen O’Hara, Valentine Talland and Nagesh Mahanthappa, Maria Garzon Vassallo and Mark Vassallo, and Elissa and William Warner.

Huff and a Puff remains on view at deCordova through November 2033.

Find further information here.

Image © Hugh Hayden, photography by Mel Taing 2023.