At SFMOMA, Jacob Hashimoto unveils Giant Arc, a monumental installation composed of nearly 75,000 kite-like elements fashioned from bamboo and printed Japanese paper. Stretching from wall to wall and descending from the ceiling, the work marks the largest piece the artist has created to date. The installation is now on view in the museum’s ground floor gallery and will remain through mid-2028.
Scale, material, and rhythm
Hashimoto’s practice gathers countless small forms into an expansive spatial field, and here the accumulation is striking: a vast array of patterned components clusters and repeats across the gallery. Built from lightweight bamboo frameworks sheathed in printed Japanese paper, the elements read as kites, multiplying into waves of color and pattern that traverse the room. The sheer quantity and the measured repetition shape a singular environment that envelops visitors.
Light, perception, and universality
The character of Giant Arc shifts with the day. As sun pours through SFMOMA’s large windows and mingles with gallery lighting, the atmosphere transforms, altering how color, contrast, and repetition register in the space. Hashimoto envisions the installation as an invitation to wonder for visitors of all ages, focusing on formal compositional elements—contrast, hue, and repetition—to emphasize the joy of the present. “The gravity of Giant Arc is its universality,” Hashimoto says in a statement. “This essential nature allows people to find what they might need in the work—mysteries if people want them, stories if people desire them, narratives to spin and twist, experimental maps and aerial geographies to explore.”
Giant Arc is a sustained encounter with scale and sensation, offering a changing experience over time. It is on view at SFMOMA in the ground floor gallery through mid-2028.
