SARASOTA, FLA.- Technology, identity, heritage and Art Deco’s 100th anniversary center the 2025-2026 season exhibition offerings at
Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design. The lineup features works by renowned artists such as Janet Echelman, Sol LeWitt, Louise Bourgeois, Chuck Close, Yoko Ono, David Hockney and Ai Weiwei and highlights the work of several emerging artists, including Chris Friday and Lillian Blades.
Upcoming Exhibitions
“Chris Friday: Where We Never Grow Old”
May 4-Aug. 10, 2025
Multidisciplinary artist Chris Friday invites visitors into imagined sanctuaries in her first solo museum exhibition, “Chris Friday: Where We Never Grow Old.” Best known for her large-scale, yet intimate, figurative chalk drawings, Friday explores the literal and metaphorical safe havens we create for self-preservation in her new site-specific installation. Taking inspiration from themes of nostalgia, family, culture and spirituality, Friday creates an alternate reality through her art — a world untouched by the hardships and injustices of real life. Tender depictions of Black figures resting peacefully and ceramics representing everyday items that conjure comfort for the artist make up this world, portrayed in a larger-than-life scale. Gold embellishments adorn Friday’s ceramics, a meaningful reference to the age-old tradition of bronzing precious childhood keepsakes. Through this never-before-seen body of work, Friday invites viewers into her artistic haven where memory is sacred, imagination is incorruptible, the burdens of the outside world are lifted and the soul never grows old.
“Chris Friday: Where We Never Grow Old” is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and curated by Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., senior curator at Sarasota Art Museum.
Jillian Mayer. Installation view of “Slumpies,” 2017. Fiberglass, polyurethane plastic, wood, and acrylic. Courtesy of the artist.
“Jillian Mayer: Slumpies”
May 4, 2025-Aug. 19, 2026
Jillian Mayer explores our ever-increasing relationship with technology and the impact device usage has on our bodies through her interactive sculpture series “Slumpies.” Blurring the line between fine art and functional objects, “Slumpies” invites viewers to sit, climb, slump and curl up, using the sculptures much like furniture. In doing so, visitors explore how Mayer’s objects provide support for the various postures we assume while using technology. With bulky, abstract forms and brightly colored palettes, the construction of these sculptures stands in stark contrast to the sleek aesthetic of today’s increasingly tech-driven world.
Jillian Mayer’s “Slumpies” are presented as part of Sarasota Art Museum’s “Inside Out” exhibition program.
Loretta Pettway. “Remember Me,” 2009. Color soft ground and spit bite aquatint etching with chine collé, 40 x 39.75 in. Courtesy of Paulson Fontaine Press, Berkeley, CA.
“Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of Paulson Fontaine Press”
May 4-Aug. 10, 2025
Featuring works by 17 artists, this nationally traveling exhibition celebrates African American artists who are reshaping the contemporary art world. At the heart of this show is the legacy of a fine art print studio, Paulson Fontaine Press, which has supported an unparalleled roster of internationally celebrated artists over the past two decades, including Martin Puryear, Kerry James Marshall and the Gee’s Bend Quilters. With 46 fine art prints, a selection of Gee’s Bend Quilts, four mixed media sculptures and a large-scale basketball pyramid installation, this exhibition showcases a diverse array of artworks by both high-profile and underrepresented visual artists. Drawing from themes of history, identity and spirituality, the artists included in this exhibition share complex stories of the African American experience through the artworks only they could create.
“Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of Paulson Fontaine Press” is a nationally traveling exhibition organized by Bedford Gallery and curated by Carrie Lederer, former Bedford Gallery curator.
Lillian Blades in the studio. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Toni Smailagic.
“Lillian Blades: Through the Veil”
June 1-Oct. 26, 2025
Themes of memory, connection, self-discovery and cultural identity frame the first solo museum exhibition by Lillian Blades. Visitors are invited to step inside a kaleidoscope of color, form and texture as they wander through an immersive labyrinth of mixed media “veils.” These radiant tapestries suspend from the ceiling and shimmer with reflective surfaces, bouncing color and light throughout the space and imbuing the exhibition with dynamic energy. Blades’ vivid color palette is inspired by her island upbringing in the Bahamas. Her artistic process of wiring eclectic materials into large-scale assemblages pays homage to the legacy of her late mother, a skilled seamstress who passed away as a result of the artist’s birth. “Through the Veil” immerses visitors in a dynamic dialogue between past and present, their surroundings and their own reflections.
“Lillian Blades: Through the Veil” is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and curated by Lacie Barbour, associate curator of exhibitions at Sarasota Art Museum.
Gert Sellheim. “Australia: Sunshine and Surf,” 1936. Collection of the Crouse Family. Image credit: Courtesy of Poster House.
“Art Deco: The Golden Age of Illustration”
Aug. 31, 2025-March 29, 2026
“The Golden Age of Illustration” celebrates the centennial anniversary of Art Deco as an artistic style and its influence on illustration, typography and the art of printed graphics. The exhibition showcases 70 rare posters from the Crouse collection created by some of the world’s earliest, master graphic designers during the 1920s and 1930s. The imagery celebrates modernity, dynamism and luxury, with subjects such as automobiles, airlines, ocean liners, drinks and tobacco revealing the dreams and desires of the turbulent early 20th century. The exhibition also nods to the era’s design aesthetic with selected sculptural works and cocktail shakers from the Crouse collection and Art Deco furniture on loan from the Wolfsonian Museum at Florida International University in Miami.
“Art Deco: The Golden Age of Illustration” is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and curated by Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., senior curator at Sarasota Art Museum.
“Selina Román: Abstract Corpulence”
Aug. 31, 2025-March 29, 2026
New works by Selina Román blend photography, abstraction and self-portraiture to explore themes of beauty and the politics of size. “Abstract Corpulence” features photographs that transform the human body into gently rolling landscapes and modernist-inspired compositions. Roman’s photographs feature tightly cropped images of the artist’s own body, boldly occupying the full composition and extending past the boundaries of each frame. Pastel bodysuits and tights transform the artist’s flesh into amorphous shapes; her stomach, thighs and hips becoming formal studies of line, shape and color. The softly hued palette lends itself to the narratives of feminine beauty and invites viewers to consider the human form from a point of true abstraction.
“Selina Román: Abstract Corpulence” is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and curated by Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., senior curator at Sarasota Art Museum.
Studio Echelman. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Bruce Petschek.
“Janet Echelman: Radical Softness”
Nov. 16, 2025-April 26, 2026
Janet Echelman’s work defies categorization. Sculpting at the scale of buildings and city blocks, her practice intersects sculpture, architecture, urban design, material science, structural and aeronautical engineering and computer science. “Radical Softness” offers a rare look into Echelman’s artistic evolution across four decades, from early explorations in drawing, painting and textile methods to the iconic, ethereal netted sculptures that have redefined public spaces around the world. The exhibition reveals the influences and processes that have driven the artist’s career and highlights her use of softness as a powerful material and philosophical tool. “Radical Softness” demonstrates how an artist’s work can bring people together and carve out space for reflection in an ever-changing world.
“Janet Echelman: Radical Softness” is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and curated by Lacie Barbour, associate curator at Sarasota Art Museum.
Something Borrowed, Something New
April 19, 2026–Sept. 27, 2026
Featuring works by such acclaimed modern and contemporary artists as Louise Bourgeois, Chuck Close, Yoko Ono, David Hockney, Ai Weiwei and others, “Something Borrowed, Something New” offers a rare glimpse into private collections held throughout Southwest Florida. From paintings, sculptures and prints to photographs and video works, the exhibition showcases a diverse range of artworks produced by some of the most prominent artists of our time.
Complementing these borrowed selections, this show also features exciting new pieces and creates a dialogue between the works of late 20th-century trailblazers and today’s leading global artists. Together, this curation celebrates a passion for the visual arts.
“Something Borrowed, Something New” is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and curated by Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., senior curator at Sarasota Art Museum.
Maria A. Guzmán Capron: New Works
April 19, 2026–Sept. 27, 2026
Maria A. Guzmán Capron explores the complexities of identity through her vibrant figurative textiles in a new solo exhibition. Born in Milan, Italy, to Peruvian and Colombian parents and later relocating to Texas as a teenager, the California-based artist understands first-hand the challenges of toggling between different cultures and geographies. Capron channels these personal experiences into her artwork, creating layered portraits of exuberant, multi-faceted characters.
Common materials like cotton join with luxurious fabrics such as silk to explore power dynamics and hierarchies within society today. Through her use of various fabrics, Capron asks viewers to consider the way our own identities have been stitched together over time — beautiful, ever-evolving collages of ancestry, culture and life experiences. Capron’s plush, flowing figures merge, embrace and spill into one another, inviting us to recognize ourselves in others, see others within ourselves and find comfort and beauty in being “in between.”
“Maria A. Guzmán Capron: New Works” is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and curated by Lacie Barbour, associate curator at Sarasota Art Museum.
Beautiful Ideas: The Prints of Sol LeWitt
May 17, 2026–Oct. 25, 2026
Regarded as one of the founders of both minimalism and conceptual art, Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) is best known for his large-scale wall drawings and modular structures. Alongside these works, LeWitt generated more than 350 print projects during his 40-year artistic career, including thousands of lithographs, silkscreens, etchings, aquatints, woodcuts and linocuts. Printmaking proved to be the perfect medium for LeWitt’s brand of conceptual art, in which the “idea becomes a machine that makes the art.”
“Beautiful Ideas: The Prints of Sol LeWitt” explores the artist’s extensive body of prints, beginning with his earliest works and extending through his mature expressions in abstraction. Organized in four thematic sections — “Lines, Arcs, Circles and Grids,” “Bands and Colors,” “From Geometric Figures to Complex Forms” and “Wavy, Curvy, Loopy Doopy and in All Directions” — the exhibition reflects the bold geometric shapes and precise lines that defined LeWitt’s artistic style.
“Beautiful Ideas: The Prints of Sol LeWitt” is organized by the New Britain Museum of American Art and curated by David S. Areford, professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The exhibition includes 41 objects, consisting of single prints and print series, for a total of over 100 prints.
On View Now
“Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks”
Through May 4, 2025
Fashion, design innovation and technology come together in “Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks.” See more than 70 futuristic designs that address industrial-age problems and consider post-industrial possibilities. Visitors will see the future of footwear in digital designs, 3-D printed shoes, footwear created for the Metaverse and sneakers made from mushroom leather and reclaimed ocean plastics. Bata Shoe Museum’s holdings and loans from other institutions, collectors, designers and inventors comprise the exhibition. 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.
“Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks” is co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum and curated by Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and senior curator at Bata Shoe Museum.
“Molly Hatch: Amalgam”
Through April 26, 2026
“Amalgam,” brings more than 480 hand-painted plates together as one ensemble framed by the four arched windows of the museum, visually spanning two floors. The site-specific installation by Molly Hatch combines motifs from historical ceramics such as 15th-century Chinese Ming-dynasty drinking vessels, 19th-century Moroccan Fassi ware, 17th- and 18th-century Dutch Delft vases and 19th- and 20th-century Japanese-inspired English ceramics designed by Christopher Dresser. Painted in white, blue and gold luster, these earthenwares are recontextualized into a cohesive and dynamic display. Hatch’s artistic practice spans nearly two decades and highlights the importance of cross-cultural connections and inherited objects.
“Amalgam” is commissioned as part of Sarasota Art Museum’s “Inside Out” exhibition program.
