INSIDE OUT

Inside Out invites you to discover works of art throughout our Museum Campus, in addition to those showcased through rotating exhibitions in our galleries. This dynamic program gives contemporary artists from around the world the opportunity to share thought-provoking work outside of the gallery setting, in order to spark new conversations about art and ideas amongst museumgoers of all ages and backgrounds. When you explore our Museum Campus, you will find sculpture and installations on Klein Plaza and the Great Lawn, as well as in unexpected spaces like Bistro, McGuire Hall, Schmidt Loggia, McCague Arcade and the Surkis/Elona Lobby. Come experience and interact with art in our iconic buildings and campus, inside and out.

Inside Out is made possible, in part, with generous support from:

Edward and Elizabeth Gardner Foundation Trust
Jane and Phillip Humann
Roxanne Permesly
Donna Pickup

Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A)
Coming Together

2020

Ink on vinyl

Courtesy of the artist and GAVLAK Los Angeles / Palm Beach

Thomas McGuire Hall

Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A), Coming Together (2020) Ink on vinyl, Photo: Rich Schineller
Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A), Coming Together (2020)
Ink on vinyl

Courtesy of the artist and GAVLAK Los Angeles / Palm Beach
Photo: Rich Schineller

Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A) (b. 1961) was born in Venezuela and currently resides and works in South Florida. Alvarez’s work spans various media, including performance, works on paper, and large-scale vinyl installations – all grounded in the exploration of common human experience.

Coming Together was created for Sarasota Art Museum in 2020 — all in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic that produced feelings of isolation and disconnection for many.

In D.O.P.A.’s words:

In the act of creating this mural, I thought of the museum as a place of healing. A place that contains within it the possibility of transformation, a place that acts as a vessel of sorts to lift our spirits, celebrate our connections as humans and bring in the possibility of hope. That’s the reason that I named it Coming Together. Not just as an obvious response to our current world atmosphere but actually as a proposal to encourage us to lose ourselves in the objects and activities that we as humans create in order to give our lives meaning. I’ve tried to fill one’s direct and peripheral vision upon entering the space. Continuing my visual inquiry of both the fantastic and the philosophical, I’ve utilized a very bright and welcoming color palette. I try to invite the visitors to contemplate the dance played out in front of them. Ultimately, the painting creates a type of fantastic visual reverie destined to transport the viewer to a higher place. A place of “non judgement” and acceptance. A visual oasis in the midst of an urban setting. A visual testament of our collective story of survival and recovery.

A story where Art becomes not only a vehicle to transport the viewer, but also a tool to heal myself and others.

Molly Hatch
Staccato

2017/2022

Ceramic

Courtesy of the artist and Todd Merrill Studio

Bistro

Molly Hatch’s signature plate paintings—large-scale installations of hand-glazed ceramic plates—reimagine historical decorative arts through a contemporary lens, while bridging the gap between decorative and fine art. The piece Staccato diffuses an 18th century Chinese export pattern from Owen Jones’ book The Grammar of Chinese Ornament over a gridded installation of 108 hand-painted earthenware plates. The glazed surfaces collectively become a fragmented canvas for a delicate, painterly re-rendering.

Molly Hatch (b. 1978) earned her BFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, at Tufts, and then received her MFA in ceramics from the University of Colorado. Hatch considers herself a painter “who just happens to choose the surface of ceramics instead of canvas.”1
“I want people to view plates as one would view a painting,” notes Hatch. “As we move through our daily lives, eating breakfast, sipping an afternoon cup of tea or gathering for a family dinner, the patterned ceramic objects we live with are precious witnesses to our stories.”2

1 Michael Woodson, “Fine Art Meets Fine Dining | This Artist Creates One-Of-A-Kind Ceramic Art,” Artistsnetwork, Accessed October 26, 2022, https://www.artistsnetwork.com/magazine/molly-hatch-creates-ceramic-art/.

2 Molly Hatch, A Passion for China: A Little Book About the Objects We Eat From, Live With and Love (September Publishing, UK, 2017), 11.

Molly Hatch, Staccato, 2017/2022, Ceramic, 40 x 270 in., Courtesy of the artist and Todd Merrill Studio
Molly Hatch
Staccato
2017/2022
Ceramic
40 x 270 in.

Courtesy of the artist and Todd Merrill Studio

John Henry
Complexus

2007

Painted Steel

On loan from the City of Sarasota

Great Lawn

John Henry (1943 – 2022, Lexington, Kentucky) is acclaimed for his monumental sculptures composed of floating beams and primary colors.

Standing 70 feet tall, Complexus was completed in Henry’s signature style: a grand statement of mass and color constructed with refined, geometric forms. While the sculpture is composed of basic shapes, Henry orients them in a complicated puzzle of floating and leaning pieces, creating a visual paradox – the sculpture appears both grounded as a large steel structure, yet also airy, as pieces float amongst the background of the sky.

Henry’s large-scale sculptures have made their mark on landscapes across the United States. All of his sculptures are designed and constructed in his studio in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
John Henry Complexus 2007 Painted steel
John Henry, Complexus, 2007
Painted steel

Steven and William Ladd
Cookie Monster

2022

Cedar, zip ties, metal, and painted wood frame

Courtesy of the Artists

Great Lawn

Coming Soon!

Olivier Mosset
Untitled

2019

Acrylic on masonry

Courtesy of the artist

Marcy & Michael Klein Plaza

Olivier Mosset's Untitled (2019) site specific installation at Sarasota Art Museum
Olivier Mosset, Untitled (2019)
Acrylic on masonry

Courtesy of the artist

Olivier Mosset's Untitled (2019) site specific installation at Sarasota Art Museum
Olivier Mosset, Untitled (2019)
Acrylic on masonry

Courtesy of the artist

Olivier Mosset (b. 1944,  Switzerland) is one of the most influential artists to emerge from the radical art revolutions of the 1960s and perhaps the most powerful in the ongoing discourse on “the death of painting.” Seeking to reject the mere commodification of art—objects transacting as base currency—and hoping to elevate the practice with greater spiritual, aesthetic, and intellectual meaning, Mosset and his cohorts playfully disrupted notions of authorship and ownership. Trained in the beaux-arts tradition, Mosset’s work disrupts illusionistic conventions in art and returns to the foundation of painting with pure color and form.

Mosset represented Switzerland in the 1994 Venice Biennial and has influenced generations of artists, such as Odili Donald Odita, whose work can be seen in the Loggia. Coming of artistic age in the 1960s, Mosset was steeped in avant-garde gestures designed to actively resist the commodification of art. As a member of BMPT,a mid-1960s, Paris-based art group composed of painters Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier, and Niele Toroni, Mosset aimed to create artwork that referred to nothing but itself. Mosset continued to focus on pure color, shape, and authorship after BMPT disbanded, as seen with the prints featured here and the site responsive painting installation on the façade of the Vocational Shops building designed by Paul Rudolph in 1959. Mosset has collaborated with architects such as Jean Nouvel, subtly enhancing architectonic features with his reductive monochromes. In this case, the metal casements of previous doors became the frame for a painting, playing on the notion that a painting is always a portal to another dimension or plane. A young boy, upon visiting Mosset’s collection of the minimal artists who have been influenced by him remarked “You know, where there is less to see, you look more carefully.”

Odili Donald Odita
Force Field

2019-2020

Latex paint on masonry

Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery

Jan Schmidt Loggia

Odili Donald Odita (b. 1966, Nigeria) 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's "Force Field" is a a site specific installation for Sarasota Art Museum
Odili Donald Odita, Force Field, 2019-2020

Photo: Sarasota Art Museum

Leah Rosenberg
28 Colors (Sarasota, FL)

2019

Latex and acrylic paint

Courtesy of the artist

Museum Lobby and stairwell

For Leah Rosenberg (b. 1979, Michigan), color and process play a primary role in her body of work spanning painting, sculpture, printmaking, food and performance.

In 28 Colors (Sarasota, FL), Leah Rosenberg surveyed our hometown on foot and chose twenty-eight colors to represent specific aspects of Sarasota. On view you will see Purple Hyacinth of the Van Wezel, Sea Star of manatees at MOTE, Vermillion of circus stripes, Tangy Orange of the Sarasota High School team colors, and Oregano of palm tree leaves, among twenty-three other colorful interpretations. The shape of the installation responds to the architecture of the building, transforming from solid stripes in the Lobby that then begin to sway and segment into playful confetti in the stairwell, and ultimately fall back into a structured pattern that mimics the original brick masonry.

Christian Sampson
Vita in Motu

2019

Solar Projection, Color Motion Picture, a durational site-specific installation with dichroic film, acrylic and glass

Courtesy of the artist

Museum Third Floor – Jonathan McCague Arcade

Christian Sampson (b. 1974) works with both tangible and intangible materials – Plexiglas, polymers, wood, dyes, light, reflection and shadow – to experiment with space and perception. His works are often site-specific, uniquely responding to architectural space. The ephemeral and ever-changing nature of these colored light projections aligns closely with early cinematic animation and filmmaking experiments.

The site-specific installation Vita in Motu conscripts the architecture of the building, and the solar system, as collaborators to create an ever-changing dazzling color and light show, reminding us of our place in the universe and that color is light, constantly in flux, and subject to one’s perspective.

Hank Willis Thomas
Ernest and Ruth (Exuberant Pink)

2018

Rolled steel and enamel paint

Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Marcy & Michael Klein Plaza

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976) is a conceptual artist whose work explores ideas of identity and culture. Through the presentation of recognizable symbols, such as those from popular culture and advertising, his work calls into question typecasts of race and gender present within these societal spheres. Thomas’ work is often participatory, compelling introspection through interaction.