Currently on view at MOCA Pacific Design Center is Jacob Hashimoto's "Gas Giant" , the artist's first solo museum exhibition in California. This massive installation transforms the museum experience into an immersive environment composed of a sea of carefully placed paper elements. Hashimoto derives inspiration from traditional kite-making techniques and collage. He intensifies the result of combing these methods by constructing a visually loud and consuming design. As the giant's layers of colorful patterns harmoniously hang from the ceiling, the mesmerizing intricacy directs the viewer to the climactic portion of the piece where its magnitude is accentuated with the "verticality of the space". "Gas Giant" was first exhibited in Chicago in 2012 at Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Later, it displayed in Venice, Italy, in 2013 at Fondazione Querini Stampalia. It is now in its third and final edition at MOCA Pacific Design Center, taking over the grid of the white cube on the first floor and making its way up to the second.
Its scale compels viewers to follow its entrancing flowing layers. Its structure, although implying subtle movement, is gracefully reminiscent to that of sacred architecture, post-war abstract painting, and influenced by the Light and Space movement in the 1960s and various 1990s Los Angeles painters. Hashimoto expands on familiar art approaches through an explorative presentation of abstraction, landscape, color, repetition, and association. These elements form the complexity within this piece. The viewer is confronted with a type of beauty that embraces detail and infinity through form, a temporary beauty that makes the viewing experience unforgettable.
"Gas Giant" will be on view until June 8th. Make sure to see it in person before it's gone! Enjoy a few pictures via the museum.
