The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is about to unveil an enormous, free installation by multimedia artist Jacob Hashimoto.
Opening on August 20, 2026, Jacob Hashimoto: Giant Arc on August 20, 2026 features nearly 75,000 hand-built kites made of bamboo and Japanese paper, suspended together to form an undulating cloud canopy in the Roberts Family Gallery. It’s the largest installation that Hashimoto has ever built.
The gallery is part of the 45,000-square-foot section of SFMOMA that is open to the public for free, meaning visitors can walk right in to see the unbelievable sculptural work without a ticket, or simply peer through the two-story windows on Howard Street.
A commission rooted in Northern California
Hashimoto has spent 30 years building large-scale kite installations for venues around the world, including Path to the Sky at the Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, Italy (2025); Not After a Million Years at the Nordiska Akvarellmuseet in Skärhamn, Sweden (2024); and The Fractured Giant at the Boise Art Museum in Idaho (2022). Permanent works by the artist are installed at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education in Palo Alto, Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, the BNA Nashville International Airport, and Tokiwabashi Tower in Tokyo, among others.
Giant Arc builds on that body of work while introducing tens of thousands of new elements made specifically for the SFMOMA space. Several of those elements incorporate designs drawn from the flora and fauna of Northern California — among them graphic references to the dahlia (San Francisco’s official flower), the checker lily (native to the Bay Area), and the Sonoran blue butterfly, found along the California coast.
Opening night events
Hashimoto’s installation will open with a celebration from 6-8pm on August 20, 2026, featuring a conversation between Hashimoto and Joseph Becker, SFMOMA’s curator of architecture and design, who also organized the exhibition. A sound performance by Nico Georis will take place in the Roberts Family Gallery the same evening.
SFMOMA is located at 151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94103.