Sol Hashemi and Jason Hirata are undergraduates at the University of Washington. Their exhibit at the Seattle cooperative known as Punch continues to enthrall. I would have written about it earlier but had to move my books and files out of the old PI so the new online-only crew can get to work without formers hanging around, looking wistful.
Young as they are, Hashemi and Hirata have a wistful edge.
Maybe it’s because all the good positions are taken. For artists in their early 20s, the chances of doing someone else’s work without realizing it are good.
Alert, awake and aware, Hashemi and Hirata have a sly magpie sensibility. Yes, they’re recycling, and yes, isn’t everybody?
Hirata licked a canvas till his tongue bled red. (Hello, young Chris Burden.) Hashemi sent a droopy houseplant for a ride on the top of one of those movable disc vacuum cleaners. (He’s looking at you, Buster Simpson.)
But nothing in their show is anybody’s old school. Hashemi’s light touch in the world of manufactured things and Hirata’s pathetically puny use of props celebrates a world of reduced circumstances. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back. Their flimsy take on what’s happening now is what’s happening now.
Saturday night, they’re closing with a party. Expect fog machines.
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