Background
Alex Hay was born on April 18, 1930, in Valrico, Florida, United States.
600 W College Ave, Tallahassee, FL 32306, United States
Florida State University
Robert Rauschenberg
painter performance artist sculptor
Alex Hay was born on April 18, 1930, in Valrico, Florida, United States.
Alex Hay entered Florida State University in Tallahassee in 1953. He had studied art for five years and obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
In 1959, the artist moved to New York City where he received some art lessons from a choreographer Merce Cunningham and a dancer Judith Dunn.
Alex Hay began his career from the military service in the Air Force.
In the early 1960s, Alex relocated to New York City where he got acquainted with such artists as Steve Paxton and Robert Rauschenberg through whom he became involved in the performance art. In 1962, Hay joined the Judson Dance Theater as a performance artist.
Two years later, Alex Hay became a stage manager of Robert Rauschenberg in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s World Tour. He also produced the stage decorations for the choreographic works.
In 1966, Hay took part at the Experiments in Art and Technology’s 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering where he performed in such dances and presentations like Prairie (1963), Colorado Plateau (1964), Leadville (1964), Grass Field (1966) and Top Soil (1966).
Despite his activity as a performer and set decorator, Alex Hay exhibited his paintings and sculptural artworks. One of the first solo shows of the artist took place in June of 1967 at the Kornblee Gallery in New York City and was followed by two personal exhibitions the subsequent years.
At the beginning of the 1970s, Alex Hay withdrew from the art world and relocated to Bisbee, Arizona, United States. The pause had lasted till 2003.
Since then, Hay’s artworks were rediscovered in such galleries and museums as Whitney Museum of American Art, Peter Freeman Inc., Leo Castelli Gallery and many others.
Nowadays, the artist lives and works in Bisbee, Arizona, United States.
Quotes from others about the person
"[Hay] has seemingly stripped his work of any symbolic significance in favour of a purely material and perceptual investigation." Robert White, art critic
Alex Hay married a dancer Deborah Goldensohn in 1959.