{"id":230665,"date":"2026-04-14T03:17:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/230665\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T03:17:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:17:23","slug":"janet-echleman-turns-inward-with-radical-softness-in-sarasota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/230665\/","title":{"rendered":"Janet Echleman turns inward with ‘Radical Softness’ in Sarasota"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ehindStudio Echelman. Credit: Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Bruce Petschek.<\/p>\n

For years, Janet Echelman\u2019s notorious \u201cBending Arc<\/a>\u201d installation hovered above the St. Pete Pier, acting as a sculpture, landmark and gathering point. Its removal in early 2025, following storm damage (and an unlikely collision with airborne furniture), left a noticeable absence along the waterfront.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that pause has created space for something else.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now on view at the Sarasota Art Museum, \u201cRadical Softness<\/a>\u201d spotlights the broader scope of her work. The exhibition traces her four-decade career, from early experiments to the complex systems behind her most recognizable pieces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inside the museum, that evolution unfolds across mediums. Early works made with batik textiles, charcoal drawings and stitched fabric from the late 1980s and \u201990s appear alongside rope samples, scale models and engineering studies that map out how her massive net sculptures come together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A new series of cyanotypes, made from digital renderings and photographs, translates those monumental forms into something quieter. Yet, even at a smaller scale, the core ideas remain. Echelman\u2019s work returns again and again to interconnected systems, with references to climate change, migration and geopolitics threaded throughout.<\/p>\n

If \u201cBending Arc\u201d operated as a highly visible, ever-moving public artwork, \u201cRadical Softness\u201d shifts the focus inward. It emphasizes process, material and iteration, offering a more complete picture of a practice often encountered only from a distance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, \u201cBending Arc\u201d itself is expected to return to the St. Petersburg waterfront, with reinstallation planned to begin within the next six months and ahead of the upcoming hurricane season\u2014bringing the conversation full circle.<\/p>\n

\u201cRadical Softness\u201d runs through Sunday, April 26, at the Sarasota Art Museum. <\/a><\/p>\n

Echelman gives a talk on the exhibit at Tampa Museum of Art on Friday, April 24. Tickets are $25. <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

This article appears in Apr. 09 \u2013 15, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Studio Echelman. Credit: Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Bruce Petschek. For years, Janet Echelman\u2019s notorious \u201cBending Arc\u201d installation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[70738,103348,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-230665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-janet-echelman","tag-sarasota-art-museum","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}