Now

Carl Abbott

Architecture for Nature

The Memory Project

Barbara Banks : Worker

Located in the south wing, Barbara Banks’ Worker celebrates the individuals who lent their talents to remake the building that is now Sarasota Art Museum.

Barbara Banks, Close up of Worker (2019)

Upcoming Exhibitions

Harmony Hammond
Material Witness, Five Decades of Art

28 March - 26 July 2020

Harmony Hammond: Material Witness, Five Decades of Art is the first museum survey of the work of Harmony Hammond – subversive artist, feminist and lesbian scholar, author and curator. Through the recontextualization of a wide cast of materials and form, Hammond challenges the historical associations of painting as a male-dominated field, and combats stereotypes of feminist and queer art. Organized by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, this exhibition spans fifty years (1971-2018) of Hammond’s painting-sculpture works, drawings, and ephemera.

Harmony Hammond: Material Witness, Five Decades of Art is organized by Amy Smith-Stewart, Senior Curator, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Generous support for Harmony Hammond: Material Witness, Five Decades of Art is provided by Crozier Fine Arts and Diana Bowes and James Torrey. Media support is provided by Connecticut Cottages & Gardens (CTC&G). Generous support from the Wagner Foundation has helped to make it possible for Material Witness: Five Decades of Art to travel to the Sarasota Art Museum.

Harmony Hammond, Dogon (1978/2015)

Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York
Photo: Eric Swanson

© Harmony Hammond / VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Peter Young: Fellow Traveller

25 April – 7 September 2020

Peter Young’s paintings explore the territory beyond pure Minimalism and Abstract Surrealism. Immersed in the New York art scene in the 1960s, both Young and his art were subject to the strict formal criteria of Minimal art that prevailed at the time. Though Young addresses this in his mathematical grids and curvilinear forms, he also surpasses formal boundaries by intertwining organic elements into the geometrically engineered. The merging of mathematics and spontaneity – through color, pattern, and handmade touch – results in a sense of unmatched intimacy and psychedelic other worldliness.

Peter Young, #24-1972 (1972)

In the Rudolph Building

Thonet

Sarasota Art Museum

Paul Rudolph Building

Thonet exhibition

On the Grounds

Zen Jail

JPW3

Marcy & Michael Klein Plaza

Zen Jail is an open-ended work in progress, adapting to its new home in Sarasota, after time in a park in Miami. The artist, JPW3, sourced a piece of wood from a tree that grew in Sarasota, and has turned it into a scope for the viewer/participant to meditate—or spy—on passers-by from the sunken bench seat. A tea plant is growing, that will be harvested and brewed in a series of interactive performative events that will riff on tea ceremonies around the world. Passion flower (passiflora) vines will eventually grow onto the framework of Zen Jail, providing a micro-ecosystem for butterflies (especially the endangered Monarch Danaus plexippus) and other pollinators to assist in habitat restoration. Zen Jail will evolve and grow as the site responds to the communities’ engagement. It may be a meditation site, a site for music and performance, a site for reflection, a playspace—how would you like to play with Zen Jail?

JPW3, Zen Jail (2016/2019)

Los Trompos

Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena

Great Lawn

Los Trompos (“The Spinning Tops”), a large-scale, interactive installation designed by award-winning contemporary Mexican designers Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena. Inspired by the colorful design of a children’s toy top, the vibrant colors on each are made from fabric that is woven in a traditional style by Mexican artisans. Functioning as both artwork and rotating seating spaces, each sculpture acts as a gathering place for relaxation, social interaction and a meaningful art experience.

Esrawe + Cadena, Los Trompos (2015)

Force Field

Odili Donald Odita

Jan Schmidt Loggia

Odili Donald Odita is well known for his site-specific kaleidoscopic patterns of hard-edge, colorful shapes. Force Field bathes the Museum’s loggia with colorful angular forms arranged in a rhythmic composition, with slivers of white acting as visual ellipses, much like phrasing in a jazz riff.

Odili Donald Odita, Force Field (2019-2020)

Now