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Exhibitions
Now
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.
Collection of Mr. Bailey. Courtesy American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum.
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 the Artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery.
Molly Hatch: Amalgam
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 Artists
Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A), Coming Together
Claire Ashley, Chromatic Blush: Wee Bairn
Chakaia Booker, Square Peg
Molly Hatch, Staccato
John Henry, Complexus
Olivier Mosset, Untitled
Leah Rosenberg, 28 Colors
Christian Sampson, Vita in Motu
Next
Jillian Mayer: Slumpies
April 21, 2025–September 2026
Fiberglass, polyurethane plastic, wood, and acrylic. Courtesy of the artist.
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.
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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.