On a recent walk with my dogs, I passed a house that triggered a specific memory. The windows were open and the smell of the interior wafted out. Musty carpet blended with overly sweet florals and dark fruits—old lady perfume. I was 15 again, walking into the tiled, gloomy foyer of my piano teacher’s house. I could picture the upright Steinway piano weighing down the shag carpet in her living room and the way she caressed her furrowed brow when I confessed that I hadn’t really practiced that week.
Smells often trigger memories. And I’m not alone. Studies have found that the olfactory system intertwines smell with past experiences so tightly that odors can send us directly into the emotions contained in that memory. But it’s rare that a visual cue has triggered some kind of sensory memory, which is what makes the work of Hugh Hayden, currently on display at the Nasher Sculpture Center, particularly fascinating. In his exhibition, Hayden creates sculptural works that capture the way a memory feels.
Hayden, who grew up in North Texas in the 80s and 90s, is a sculptor who creates recognizable structures out of wood, which he then alters in striking ways. His objects are imbued with profound, if somewhat abstract, meaning. The title of his exhibition, Homecoming, is quite literal for the Jesuit grad, for whom this is his first major Dallas show. Since earning his MFA from Columbia University in 2018, his work has been part of major exhibitions, solo or otherwise, in New York, Miami, Brussels, London, and even Houston. But the title also contains a double meaning in relation to the show’s subject matter, which includes references to domesticity, along with the Texas traditions that accompany high school football.
For this exhibition, Hayden, 41, has created a new body of work inspired by his childhood in Duncanville. Walking into the museum’s main galleries, visitors encounter a wooden sculpture that is a specific nod to Kidsville, a playground constructed entirely of unpainted wood, which was fundraised and built by volunteer community members in 1989. But Hayden has covered the entire structure in boar hair bristles, which immediately reminded me of the pain of countless splinters I earned by climbing over similar structures in the Plano neighborhoods of my childhood.
Other aspects of this exhibit may elicit similar visceral reactions. One section of the gallery invites visitors into the memory of a high school cafeteria, in which Hayden has taken a readymade bench and added wooden appendages resembling pencils, making it treacherous to sit down. That table is bulwarked by mirrors, creating a disorienting experience that makes it impossible not to remember lunchrooms from your own teenage years.
One of the most compelling pieces on display is a small frame that contains the Texas flag constructed out of a collection of pills. On the press tour, we’re told it’s constructed of Descovy, Propecia, and Zyrtec; medications for HIV prevention, male pattern balding, and generic allergies, respectively. But this piece, and any meaning it might contain, gets gobbled up by the other, larger work in this exhibition.
Overall, this exhibition feels a little scattershot and disconnected. There are clear, critical takes on his Texas childhood. The work “Happily Ever After After” transforms a playhouse into the shape of a church, complete with pews and a pulpit. “Blending In” covers a football uniform in cherry bark. But the entire exhibition, which comes 15 years into his career, feels unfinished, like this is the beginning of Hayden unpacking these memories, not the culmination of a complete thought.
Hugh Hayden: Homecoming is on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center through January 5, 2025. 2001 Flora St.
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