Hugh Hayden: Boogey Men

Hugh Hayden’s “Boogey Men” (open at ICA Miami through April 17, 2022) looks at poignant themes both personal and political through a series of major new works crafted especially for the exhibition, alongside past creations. Suggesting through his narrative themes like the corrupted nature of our institutions, at the center of the show, Boogey Man, a monumental work in stainless steel, is uncomfortably similar to the silhouette of Klansmen. Also on view is a work that invokes a family tree using a specific species of cypress tree common in Louisiana where he frequented as a child and where his mother was raised, and Soul Food, a cluster of copper-plated pots, pans and cast-iron skillets of instruments and musicians each anthropomorphized with an African mask.