"I have been formed by an experience of the political world as both intensely intimate and profoundly public. These experiences mark my work more deeply than any other I've had in my life."
Sharon Hayes (b. 1970) employs various mediums—including video, performance, installation, and photography—to probe the complex intersections of history, politics, and speech within private and public spaces. Hayes' work is concerned with interrogating the present political moment, often through works staged "in the street," a practice that she says arose from her "interest in public speech and the conditions of public address." Her current large-scale project, Ricerche, began in 2013 and uses a series of single-channel video, photo, projection, and performance installations for an inquiry into sexuality in contemporary America. Her work has been shown at the Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, the 55th International Venice Biennale, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, among others. The recipient of a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2013 Alpert Award in the Arts, and a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship, Hayes received an MFA from the University of California and currently serves as associate professor of fine arts in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.
