OPEN STUDIOS
Monday, November 25-Wednesday, November 27
Join us this break in The Studios @SAM and make your own art!
Our hearts remain with our resilient and caring community and with our neighbors who faced the worst impacts of Hurricane Milton. As a symbol of gratitude for our community, the Museum will offer free admission for all from Tuesday, October 15 through Sunday, October 20, free art-making activities from 11 am-3 pm daily, and the Bistro will serve free coffee, water, and a warm cup of soup while supplies last.
Classes for OLLI and The Studios at SAM will will begin/resume on Monday, October 21.
We look forward to seeing you in the galleries!
Support for Second Sundays at Sam is provided by the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation.
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Bistro
Open Daily 10 am – 3 pm
Saturday and Sunday Brunch
SHOP
Open Daily 10 am – 5 pm
Museum Members receive a 10% discount in the Shop and invitations to exclusive events. Your purchases support the Museum’s programs and exhibitions.
Our Members get more.
Now
Larry Fink / Martha Posner: Flesh and Bone
November 17, 2024–April 13, 2025
This exhibition explores the creative dialogue between photographer Larry Fink (1941-2023) and sculptor Martha Posner (born 1956), who were romantic partners for more than 30 years. Radically different artists, their work nonetheless shares common themes of desire, vulnerability, and brutality. Both also explore myth throughout their art: Posner explicitly, through her re-imagining of female subjects from various legends and mythic traditions; Fink implicitly, through his shrewd eye for human impulse, folly, and bravado, qualities he found in almost every scenario no matter how base or exalted.
Joe Fig: Contemplating Vermeer
November 17, 2024–April 13, 2025
A nationally exhibited artist based in Sarasota, Joe Fig is known for his Contemplating series—small, intimate paintings of people looking at artwork in museums and galleries.
Joe Fig: Contemplating Vermeer records Fig’s encounter with the blockbuster Johannes Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam in 2023. Focusing not only on the gallery space and over a dozen of Vermeer’s canvases but also on the visitors looking at the art, Fig invites viewers to contemplate art and the experience it allows us to share.
Tammy Nguyen: Timaeus and the Nations
Claire Ashley: Chromatic Blush
October 20, 2024-January 19, 2025
Step into the immersive world of colorfully painted vibrant inflatables by Claire Ashley (Scottish, born 1971). For over a decade, she has used inflatables as both sculptures and paintings, mining the language of painterly abstraction, monumental installation, and slapstick humor. For Ashley, the inflatable form in its two states–inflated and deflated–offers a compelling metaphor for the human body, echoing its processes of tension and release. Challenging conventional notions of beauty and taste, Ashley presents her lumpy and luminous creations as both self-portraits and embodiments of broader narratives relating to femme bodies and cultural norms. Accompanied by a soundscape, Chromatic Blush invites viewers to bask in their voluminous presence, aglow and emanating uninhibited, jubilant energy. Imagine, along with Ashley, an evolutionary future where new hybrid organisms emerge out of the Anthropocene.
Molly Hatch: Amalgam
Inside Out Artists
Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A), Coming Together
Chakaia Booker, Square Peg
Molly Hatch, Staccato
John Henry, Complexus
Olivier Mosset, Untitled
Leah Rosenberg, 28 Colors
Christian Sampson, Vita in Motu
Next
Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks
February 9-May 4, 2025
This groundbreaking exhibition explores the intersection between design innovation and technological advancements in footwear. Future Now features over 70 futuristic designs from the Bata Shoe Museumʼs holdings as well as loans from other prominent institutions, collectors, designers, and inventors. Presenting digitally designed and 3D-printed shoes, sneakers made from mushroom leather and reclaimed ocean plastics, and footwear created for the metaverse, the exhibition explores how cutting-edge technologies, unexpected materials, and new ideas are transforming footwear today. The footwear included in the exhibition is designed to address industrial-age problems and capitalize on postindustrial possibilities. Featured designers and brands include: Salehe Bembury, rtfkt, Mr. Bailey, Zaha Hadid, JEMS by Pensole, Safa Şahin, EKTO VR, Saysh, Benoit Méléard, SCRY, and many more.
Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of Paulson Fontaine Press
May 4–August 10, 2025
Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of Paulson Fontaine Press presents 17 artists who capture the personal narratives and political discourses of African Americans across the country, reflecting a collective experience expressed in uniquely individual ways. This powerful exhibition of figurative and abstract artworks channels the poetics of the human experience–from past and present–and boldly presents ideas about history, identity, personal stories, and spiritual inspiration.
Chris Friday: Where We Never Grow Old
May 4–August 10, 2025
Chris Friday is a multidisciplinary artist best known for her larger-than-life yet intimate figurative drawings, meticulously created in chalk on black paper. For her first solo museum exhibition, she explores the notion of “incorruptible environments.” These are the imagined sanctuaries we construct in our minds—our refuge from the harsh realities of the modern world—and the worlds we aspire to bring to life. Tradition, religion, and culture form the bedrock of these environments, while nostalgia and memory act as potent vessels, preserving ideas of self, community, and identity. .
Learn
Programs
Join us this season for programs that invite you to experience art and engage your senses.
P-12 School Visits
The Memory Project
Sarasota Art Museum has taken on stewardship of the history of the former Sarasota High School building. Learn about the history of the site and help keep the memory of the site—prior to recent transformation—alive.
About the Museum
M. Leo Elliott – Former Sarasota High School
Photo: Dick Dickinson
Marcy & Michael Klein Plaza
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Anchoring the Ringling College Museum Campus, the Museum has 15,000 square feet of dedicated exhibition gallery space, Bistro, Shop, auditorium for educational events, performance and film, a sculpture courtyard and extensive grounds and facilities where one can engage with site-specific and site-responsive art experiences.