Art on Film

Put the art world in focus with Art on Film at SAM. Join us for award-winning documentaries, short films, and biopics that highlight some of our favorite artists, reveal untold histories, and explore what it takes to make it as an artist today. Each screening will include opportunities for discussion and connection among audience members.

 

Meet in the Sarasota High School Alumni Auditorium.

Sarasota High School Alumni Auditorium

Reserve your Spot

Yarn movie poster

Yarn (2016)

Directed by Una Lorenzen
Running Time: 76 minutes

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

2 – 3:30 pm

$5 for Members 
$10 Not-Yet Members (includes Museum admission)

Meet the artists who are redefining the tradition of knit and crochet, bringing yarn out of the house and into the world. Reinventing our relationship with this colorful tradition, Yarn weaves together wool graffiti artists, circus performers, and structural designers into a visually-striking look at the women who are making a creative stance while building one of modern art’s hottest trends.

Sneakerheadz

Sneakerheadz (2015)

Directed by David T. Friendly
Running Time: 73 minutes

Thursday, March 27, 2025

2 – 3:30 pm

$5 for Members 
$10 Not-Yet Members (includes Museum admission)

A look at sneaker collectors explores the extreme lengths the truly obsessed will go to in order to obtain the rarest and most-expensive “kicks.”

Black Art in the Absence of Light

Black Art: In the Absence of Light (2021)

Directed by Sam Pollard
Running Time: 86 minutes

Thursday, April 24, 2025

2 – 3:30 pm

$5 for Members 
$10 Not-Yet Members (includes Museum admission)

At the heart of this feature documentary is the groundbreaking “Two Centuries of Black American Art” exhibition curated by the late African American artist and scholar David Driskell in 1976. Held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this pioneering exhibit featured more than 200 works of art by 63 artists and cemented the essential contributions of Black artists in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibit would eventually travel to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Brooklyn Museum. The film shines a light on the exhibition’s extraordinary impact on generations of African American artists who have staked a claim on their rightful place within the 21st-century art world.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)

Directed by Laura Poitras
Running Time: 122 minutes

Thursday, May 29, 2025

2 –4 pm

$5 for Members 
$10 Not-Yet Members (includes Museum admission)

The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.

Other Talks

Weekly Programs