OPEN STUDIOS
Monday, November 25-Wednesday, November 27
Join us this break in The Studios @SAM and make your own art!
Sarasota Art Museum and the museum campus will reopen Tuesday, October 15, 2024.
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!
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!
Bistro
Open Daily 10 am – 3 pm
Saturday and Sunday Brunch
Bistro offers a gourmet selection of light fares, including sandwiches, soups, specialty coffees, and desserts.
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.
Not yet a Member? Become a Member today and you’ll also receive free admission at the Mote Marine Aquarium in October.
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.
©️ Larry Fink/MUUS Collection.
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.
Oil on linen mounted on MDF board, 13 ½ x 14 ½ in. Courtesy of the artist.
Tammy Nguyen: Timaeus and the Nations
October 20, 2024–January 19, 2025
Tammy Nguyen (born 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist renowned for her densely layered, intricate compositions, merging figures, abstract shapes, and lush tropical vegetation. After her acclaimed solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston in 2023, she will unveil a brand-new body of paintings, works on paper, and an artist book.
Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London. Photo: Axel Dupeux.
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.
Spray paint on PVC coated ripstop nylon, fan, approx. 15 x 15 x 15 ft. Courtesy of the artist.
Molly Hatch: Amalgam
April 25, 2024–April 26, 2026
Hatch’s newly commissioned “plate painting,” Amalgam (2023), was created specifically for Sarasota Art Museum. Consisting of more than 450 earthenware plates hand-painted in white, blue, and gold luster, the abstract lines and shapes in Amalgam are drawn from a variety of historical ceramics from around the globe.
Ceramic, 220 in. x 324 in. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: John Polak.
Staccato
2017/2022
Ceramic
40 x 270 in.
Courtesy of the artist and Todd Merrill Studio
Photo: Coke Wisdom O'Neal
Ceramic. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: John Polak.
Inside Out invites you to discover works of art throughout our Museum Campus, in addition to those showcased through rotating exhibitions in our galleries.
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.
Image © 2023 Bata Shoe Museum. Courtesy American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum.
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.
Hard ground etching with aquatint, 24.5 x 19 in. Courtesy of Paulson Fontaine Press, Berkeley, CA.
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. .
Chalk on black archival paper, approx. 192 x 54 in. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Amir Aghareb.
Learn
Programs
Join us this season for programs that invite you to experience art and engage your senses.
P-12 School Visits
Kids love art! And we love kids! Learn more about opportunities for P-12 students to learn about the art at Sarasota Art Museum.
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.