Steel, wood, concrete, and acrylic
in three parts: a. 17 × 4 × 12 ft.; b. 14.8 ft. × 10 in. × 7.5 ft.; c. 12.5 × 9 × 26 ft.
Courtesy of the artist and David Castillo, Miami; Originally commissioned by Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, with support from the Ford Foundation
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York,
peter campus, dune tree (video still), 2021 Videograph, 8:00 minutes (looped)
Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York
Exodus
2019
Vintage saris from India, Sharjah and artist’s Indo-Guyanese family and rope net
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.29
2020-2021
Assemblage
121 x 91 x 42 in.
Collection of David Cancel
Photo: Abby Leigh
Wood, stucco, latex paint, and banana plants
Courtesy of the artist
Cove
2010
Oil on linen
60 x 81 in.
Adrienne and Chris Birchby Collection
Image courtesy of the artist and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles/Seoul
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Aluminum, creosote, yucca, and cedar bark, 50 x 42 x 20 in.
Courtesy of the artists
Photo Credit: ArandaLasch
Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College -November 8, 2020 - May 2, 2021 (installation view)
Courtesy of the artist.
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Photo: Matthew Holler
Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York
Photo: Jeffrey Sturges
© Harmony Hammond / VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Exhibition Archive
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.
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.
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.
Tammy Nguyen: Timaeus and the Nations
Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London. Photo: Axel Dupeux.
Mixed media on canvas, 102 x 156 in.
Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration
July 28–October 27, 2024
In its third iteration, Skyway is a triennial exhibition celebrating the gamut of regional creativities and contemporary art practices flourishing in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties. Originating as a collaboration among art institutions in the Tampa Bay area in 2017, Skyway has galvanized the artist community in the region, introducing artistic talents and vigorous practices to a larger audience. This year, Sarasota Art Museum proudly joins the other esteemed institutions: the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; the Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa; and the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa. With Evan Garza as a guest juror, six curators from five collaborating museums selected 66 artists from nearly 300 artists who responded to the open call.
Modern Masterpiece Uncovered:
Galloway’s Furniture Showroom by Victor Lundy
July 28–October 27, 2024
This exhibition uncovers this modernist masterpiece by first exploring the building’s architectural and cultural significance in the context of the Sarasota School of Architecture and the pioneering work of Victor Lundy. The physical and digital analysis examines the building’s wood-laminated structure and extant architectural features. The exhibition concludes with design concepts for rehabilitating, expanding, and adaptively using the former Galloway’s structure prepared by architecture students from Hampton University—a project of the Hub. Architecture Sarasota’s Hub initiative supports innovative design that helps transform places and inspire lives.
Courtesy of Sarasota Architectural Foundation.
Satin ribbon, steel cable. Courtesy of the artist.
The Truth of the Night Sky: Anne Patterson and Patrick Harlin
April 21 – September 29, 2024
Multimedia artist Anne Patterson and composer Patrick Harlin, explorer of soundscape ecologies, collaborate to create an awe-inspiring immersive installation for Sarasota Art Museum. Patterson, a synesthete who sees color and shape when hearing music, has frequently collaborated with musicians, including Harlin, to design mesmerizing environments. Patterson and Harlin met at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in 2014 and recognized in each other a similar artistic affinity for drawing inspiration from nature.
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
Ernest and Ruth (Exuberant Pink)
2018
Rolled steel and enamel paint
93 x 96 x 24 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Photo: Ryan Gamma.
Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat
Does art play an active role in identifying and revealing the realities of contemporary life? Conversely, how do present-day challenges in the world affect the choices that artists make in their studios? While these questions have no clear or easy answers, the exhibition Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, presented at Sarasota Art Museum, hopes to expand upon conventional ideas of art’s impact on our daily lives through the presentation of recent works made by 10 U.S.-based artists: Diana Al-Hadid, Sanford Biggers, Chitra Ganesh, Todd Gray, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Michelle Lopez, Ted Riederer, John Sims, Kukuli Velarde, and William Villalongo.
Judy Pfaff: Picking up the Pieces
November 19, 2023 – March 24, 2024
Judy Pfaff has been a renowned multimedia artist and pioneer of installation art for over five decades. Bursting with electrifying energy, the vast immersive environment she is creating for Sarasota Art Museum will captivate audiences as they navigate this hypnotic, otherworldly space. Pfaff’s largest installation since 2017, Picking up the Pieces will defy boundaries, mixing painting, sculpture, and architecture.
Mixed media. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Peter Aaron/OTTO.
Juana Valdés: Embodied Memories, Ancestral Histories
The exhibition Embodied Memories, Ancestral Histories is Juana Valdes’ first solo museum show. It begins with early works that address Valdes’ “Caribbeanness,” her Cuban roots, and her African ancestry. These pieces serve as a prologue to the story that unravels as the visitor moves through three aspects of her work that are not necessarily exclusive: “The History of Migration,” “Representation and Subjectivity” (Gender and the Feminine Body), and “Materiality” (Working with non-traditional materials and challenging the canon of art).
4K video, loop (13:35 min). Director and Producer: Juana Valdés; Cinematographer: Lee Burghard (Camera Operator & DP); Editor: Setty McIntosh; Assistant Editor, Sound Editor, Mix Engineer, Sound Design, and Composer: Onel Mulet. Courtesy of the artist.
Blown and slumped glass,13 4/10 x 25 x 7 in., 20 x 21 x 6 in., 24 x 19 x 6 in., 27 x 18 x 6 in. Collection of Richard and Barbara Basch. Image courtesy of Ringling College of Art and Design.
Contemporary/Traditional: Selections from the Basch Glass Collection
William and Steven Ladd
Cookie Monster
Dec 10, 2022 – Dec 10, 2023
Cedar, zip ties, metal, and painted wood frame
Courtesy of the artists
Great Lawn
Cookie Monster was created by Brooklyn-based artists and brothers Steven and William Ladd, accompanying their exhibitions Lead with A Laugh and Scrollathon at Sarasota Art Museum in 2022. They are an eclectic pair who have been creating art together about their shared memories and family anecdotes since 2000. Their art practice consists of a multitude of techniques and forms, including drawing, sculpture, installation, and collaborative performances.
When clearing trees on their New York property one day, the aroma from the cedar awakened a childhood memory in the Ladds, a recollection of their grandmother’s cedar chest and the textiles that lay within it. Inspired by the cedar woods’ color, scent, and the nostalgia they carried, the Ladd brothers began cutting slices of cedar and weaving them like beads into textiles which were then used to construct walls and ceilings for outdoor installations. Visitors are welcomed to engage with these cedar wood structures by walking through them under a covered pathway. This installation, Cookie Monster, debuted at Sarasota Art Museum’s Art Bash on December 10, 2022.
Cedar, zip ties, metal, and painted wood frame. Photo: Ryan Gamma.
Cedar, zip ties, metal, and painted wood frame. Photo: Ryan Gamma.
Cedar, zip ties, metal, and painted wood frame. Photo: Ryan Gamma.
Rubber tires, wood, and steel, 34 ½ x 98 x 11 in. Courtesy of the artist © Chakaia Booker and Courtesy of the David Nolan Gallery; The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey.
Chakaia Booker: Surface Pressure
July 16 – October 29, 2023
Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga
July 23 – October 29, 2023
Courtesy of EDP Foundation.
Sara Berman's Closet
February 5 – May 7, 2023
The NEW BLACK VANGUARD
PHOTOGRAPHY between ART and FASHION
Photo print, 40 x 30 in. © Tyler Mitchell. Courtesy of Aperture.
Framed archival ink-jet print (watermelon, hand dyed cotton fabric, hair beads, barrette bows, and afro hair), 37 x 25 x 1.5 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Stephanie J. Woods: my papa used to play checkers
A Beautiful Mess:
Weavers & Knotters of the Vanguard
February 25 – June 25, 2023
Salvaged textiles with mixed media. 78 inches diameter. (c) Kirsten Hassenfeld
by Richard Benson (American, 1943–2017)
Multiple impression pigment print, image: 11 9/16 × 17 3/8 inches.; sheet: 12 15/16 × 19 inches.
© Estate of Richard M. A. Benson. Collection of Barbara Benson. Image courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021.
Richard Benson: The World Is Smarter Than You Are
February 5 – May 7, 2023
This exhibition surveys nearly fifty years of Benson’s photography, a wide-ranging body of work that reflects his humility and boundless curiosity about the world and his tireless exploration of how to make photographs. A selection of artworks by ten artists who studied and worked with Benson will also be included in this exhibition.
Xaviera Simmons
May 2021- April 17, 2023
Steel, wood, concrete, and acrylic
in three parts: a. 17 × 4 × 12 ft.; b. 14.8 ft. × 10 in. × 7.5 ft.; c. 12.5 × 9 × 26 ft.
Courtesy of the artist and David Castillo, Miami; Originally commissioned by Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, with support from the Ford Foundation
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Shaboygen
2012
Board, plywood, metal, fiber, beads, paper, tulle, Angora bunny hair, and pins
40 ½ x 60 ¾ x 15 ½ in. (each)
Courtesy of the artists
Steven and William Ladd
September 4 – February 5, 2023
Journeys to Places Known and Unknown: Moving Images by Janet Biggs and peter campus
October 16 – January 15, 2023
barrier
videograph, 6:26 minutes, looped, edition of 3 plus 1 artist's proof, installation view of when the hurly burly's doneat Parrish Art Museum (Water Mill, NY)
Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York
In the Cold Edge(video still)
2010
Single channel HD video with sound.
Courtesy of the artist and Cristin Tierney, New York
Katrina Coombs
I M(O)ther
Threads of the Maternal Figure
May 22 – October 2, 2022
Oshun’s Glory (detail)
2020
Finger-knitted mixed fibers
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Katrina Coombs
State of the Art 2020: Constructs
April 24 – September 11, 2022
State of The Art 2020: Constructs is organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas.
The national tour of State of the Art 2020 is sponsored by Bank of America with additional support from Art Bridges.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Las Tres Marías
April 2 – August 7, 2022
Daniel Lind-Ramos (b. 1953, Puerto Rico) creates assemblages from found and reclaimed objects, many of which the artist collected from the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. This exhibition will include two new assemblage works created specifically for the Museum, Baño de María and María Guabancex, in addition to María de los Sustentos.
María de los Sustentos
2020-2021
Assemblage
121 x 91 x 42 in.
Collection of David Cancel
Photo: Abby Leigh
Courtesy of the artist
JPW3
Zen Jail
December 14, 2019 – July 19, 2022
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 (b. 1981, Tallahassee, FL), 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 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 community’s 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?
Carl Abbott
La Musa Azul
2019 – July 17, 2022
As one enters the Plaza, the eye is drawn toward two “Abbott Blue” walls converging in a portal. These diagonal gestures define the entrance to the site-responsive, interactive installation, La Musa Azul, featuring one of the signature blue hues that has defined Carl Abbott’s (b. 1944) creative practice since his youth, where he was captivated by the wild irises and petunias of his Georgia childhood. The sculpture defines Abbott’s intersecting attributes as both a colorist and a landscape designer, and employs his signature diagonal gesture, used as a device to lead both body and vision. Visitors are invited to wander the grove, sit in quiet contemplation or simply marvel at the musa trees (Latin name for the banana genus), and enjoy the shared etymology of “muse”, origin of the word museum—a muse in the grove. Trees have long provided our “first architecture”—providing shelter—and sacred groves throughout time and across cultures have provided a respite from the bustle of our “profane”, workaday lives—much needed during this current time.
Wood, stucco, latex paint, and banana plants
Courtesy of the artist
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
November 27, 2021 – May 15, 2022
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Danner Washburn
Effigy: Hemric
December 8, 2021– 8 May 2022
Porcelain figurine, NC 95 tobacco seed, collards seed, summer squash seed, sweet corn seed, neutral pH adhesive
3 x 1 ¼ x 2 in.
Courtesy of the artist
Judith Linhares: The Artist as Curator
Judith Linhares: The Artist as Curator illuminates the wondrous world of Judith Linhares (b. 1940, California) and the abundance of influences that shape her artistic practice—from her time in the California Bay Area in the 1960s and 70s, to her studio space, to her dream journals, to other artists, five of whom Linhares has selected to include in the exhibition.
Oil on linen
60 x 81 in.
Adrienne and Chris Birchby Collection
Image courtesy of the artist and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles/Seoul
David Budd: Motion Within Stillness
Oil on canvas
60 x 60 in.
Collection of Ringling College of Art and Design
Photo: Rich Schineller
Samo Davis: Happiness in ROYGBIV
May 29, 2021 – March 6, 2022
Happiness in ROYGBIV is a vibrant sculptural installation that features a colorful and effervescent tree composed of found objects from the artist’s home, intending to spark joy within the difficult times of the last year.
Plastic, pom poms, resin, yarn, clay, recycled materials.
Courtesy of the artist.
Photo: Sarasota Art Museum
Charles McGill: In the Rough
29 May – 31 October
Charles McGill: In the Rough explores the assemblage works of artist, educator, and golf teaching professional Charles McGill, who physically deconstructed and repurposed the plastic, steel, leather, vinyl, and hardware from vintage golf bags to examine the racial and class inequities associated with the sport and leisure activity.
Reconfigured golf bag parts on panel, 72 x 72 x 6 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
Photo: Jenny Gorman
Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott
29 May – 31 October
Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott is the first comprehensive retrospective of one of the United States’ most compelling and provocative artists who—through vibrant paintings laced with biting satire—confronted issues of race, gender, identity, and the uncomfortable realities of American life in the latter half of the 20th century.
Photo: Ryan Gamma
Unraveling: Aranda\Lasch & Terrol Dew Johnson
12 June – 26 September
Aluminum, creosote, yucca, and cedar bark, 68 x 66 x 40 in.
Courtesy of the artists
Photo Credit: ArandaLasch
Casein and watercolor pencil on canvas, 118 x 234 in.
Podesta Collection, Washington D.C.
Photo: Teresa Lojacono
Janaina Tschäpe
Between the Sky and the Water
13 December – 2 May 2021
Photo: Steven Brooke Studios
Photo: Matthew Holler
Carrie Mae Weems
RESIST COVID/TAKE 6!
Sarasota Art Museum launched its participation in Carrie Mae Weems’ public awareness campaign RESIST COVID/TAKE 6! in July of 2020. The project delivers Weems’ characteristic dual force of powerful, yet sobering image-text unions – here, concerned with COVID-19 and the disproportionate effects on Black, Latinx, and Native communities as a result of healthcare inequities.
Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York
Photo: Eric Swanson
© Harmony Hammond / VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Harmony Hammond
Material Witness, Five Decades of Art
15 October - 15 November 2020
Photo: Sarasota Art Museum
Color. Theory. & (b/w)
14 December 2019 - 25 October 2020
Celadon Landscape
14 December 2019 - 13 March 2020
Celadon Landscape is constructed from ceramic discards collected from numerous kilns in Korea. These shards are the result of potters destroying finished ceramic vessels with any minor imperfections. Shin views the celadon fragments as a metaphor of the Korean diaspora, vibrant artifacts of the Korean people, their history and culture that are scattered all over the world to form new identities elsewhere. The term celadon also refers to the soft, pale grey-green color achieved by coating the clay with an iron-rich glaze that oxidizes during the heating process.
Vik Muniz
14 December 2019 - 8 March 2020
Vik Muniz is distinguished as one of the most innovative and creative artists of our time. Endlessly playful and inventive in his approach, Muniz harnesses a remarkable virtuosity in creating his renowned “photographic delusions”. Working with a dizzying array of unconventional materials including sugar, tomato sauce, diamonds, magazine clippings, chocolate syrup, dust, and junk Muniz painstakingly builds tableaux before recording them with his camera. From a distance the subject of each resulting photograph is discernible; up close, the work reveals a complex and surprising matrix through which it is assembled. That revelatory moment when one thing transforms into another is of deep interest to the artist.