Skyfarm Fortress
Mary Boone Gallery 2014
On September 6, 2014, Mary Boone Gallery will open at its Chelsea location Skyfarm Fortress, the first large-scale, site-specific installation by JACOB HASHIMOTO to be shown in New York. This East Coast installation serves as a counterpoint to Hashimoto’s immense Gas Giant that opened at MOCA Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles in March 2014. Comprised of thousands of the artist’s signature bamboo and paper “kites” intricately strung together, Gas Giant offered the viewer an immersive, shifting, free-floating arena to explore. With Skyfarm Fortress, Hashimoto similarly creates a wall to wall, floor to ceiling environment, but anchors the three dimensional sculpture with a complex system of suspended open cubes that coalesce from the alignment of solid clack square kites. This architectural grid – Brutalism at its most ethereal – both visually supports and penetrates a band of overlapping planes of multicolored collage elements. Above this dynamic substructure is a canopy of white kites. Cloud-like, translucent, out of reach, and constantly rippling from air currents, this Sky contrasts with the perceived rigidity of the Fortress below. From balletic components, Hashimoto creates a tense narrative of abstract form and composition.
