ehind the scenes in Janet Echelman's artist studio, showing concept sketches, mood boards, and colorful scale models of her large-scale aerial net sculptures — Studio Echelman. Credit: Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Bruce Petschek.

For years, Janet Echelman’s “Bending Arc” 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.

But that pause has created space for something else.

Now on view at the Sarasota Art Museum, “Radical Softness” 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.

Inside the museum, that evolution unfolds across mediums. Early works made with batik textiles, charcoal drawings and stitched fabric from the late-1980s and ’90s appear alongside rope samples, scale models and engineering studies that map out how her massive net sculptures come together.

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’s work returns again and again to interconnected systems, with references to climate change, migration and geopolitics threaded throughout.

If “Bending Arc” operated as a highly visible, ever-moving public artwork, “Radical Softness” shifts the focus inward. It emphasizes process, material and iteration, offering a more complete picture of a practice often encountered only from a distance.

Meanwhile, “Bending Arc” 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—bringing the conversation full circle.

“Radical Softness” runs through Sunday, April 26, at the Sarasota Art Museum.

Echelman gives a talk on the exhibit at Tampa Museum of Art on Friday, April 24. Tickets are $25.