SBMA Online

In light of the recent developments with the COVID-19 in Santa Barbara County, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art has made the decision to close to the public from Monday, March 16 through at least Monday, April 20. The health and safety of our community is the most important factor in this decision.

General Admission entry into SBMA.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member: FREE
Adult: $5.00
Senior (age 65+): $3.00
Child (ages 6-17): $3.00
Under 6: FREE

This event has been canceled as part of SBMA’s response to the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Called by critics "one of the smartest writers alive," Rachel Cusk returns to SBMA and Parallel Stories to read from her latest collection of nonfiction writing, Coventry. In essays that are at once freewheeling and controlled, Cusk covers topics ranging from good manners, to rat eating, to traffic, to leashes on lions, and who controls the story. This fierce and elegant collection is a fearless exercise in truth telling; subtle, serious, and singular.

Book signing to follow.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member: $5.00
General Admission: $10.00
Senior (age 65+): $6.00

This event has been canceled as part of SBMA’s response to the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Writers of all levels are invited to participate in this informal exploration of the Museum's galleries as an impetus to writing. Each session is led by a visiting writer/facilitator who begins with a conversation and prompts, partially inspired by works on view. Participants are free to write on their own and then reconvene as a group to share and comment on each other's work. Please bring a journal or notebook, laptop, or tablet on which to write.

Instructor: Kara Mae Brown, author of short stories & essays

Ticket Cost:
General Admission: FREE

This event has been canceled as part of SBMA’s response to the coronavirus (COVID-19).

All skill levels are invited to experience the tradition of sketching from original works of art in current exhibitions. Museum Teaching Artists provide general guidance and all materials. Each program is open to 10 participants.

Ticket Cost:
General Admission: FREE

This event has been canceled as part of SBMA’s response to the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Edgar Arceneaux is an artist working in the media of drawing, video, film, sculpture, and performance, whose works often explore connections between historical events and present-day truths. Currently part of the SBMA exhibition In the Meanwhile...Recent Acquisitions Of Contemporary Art, Arceneaux's work has previously been on view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Performa 15, New York; the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, among other venues. From 1999 to 2012, he was director of the Watts House Project in Los Angeles, an initiative to remodel houses around the Watts Towers. In a wide-ranging and informal conversation with the audience, Arceneaux shares his thoughts about his art, current and past projects, and how we construct history and memory in a racially divided country.

credit: Edgar Arceneaux, A Four Dimensional City Casts a Two Thousand Mile Shadow. Three Mounds and Three Wedges (detail), 2014. Acrylic, chalk pastel, vinyl, and enamel on paper SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided by the General Art Acquisitions Fund.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member: FREE
General Admission: $10.00

Tiffany Bell, Independent Scholar, NY

The research for the catalogue raisonné, by bringing together information about Agnes Martin’s complete body of work, has made it possible to better understand the development of her early work as well as some of the stylistic shifts and thematic changes throughout her career. This presentation will describe the research for the catalogue raisonné, presenting anecdotes about newly found works and interesting discoveries, as well as giving examples of observations that have influenced a new understanding of Agnes Martin’s art.

Ticket Cost:
SBMA Member (Curators' Patron & above): FREE
SBMA Member (Collector's Patron and below): $10.00
General Admission: $15.00
Student (Valid student ID required): FREE

All skill levels are invited to experience the tradition of sketching from original works of art in current exhibitions. Museum Teaching Artists provide general guidance and all materials. Each program is open to 10 participants.

Ticket Cost:
General Admission: FREE

Writers of all levels are invited to participate in this informal exploration of the Museum's galleries as an impetus to writing. Each session is led by a visiting writer/facilitator who begins with a conversation and prompts, partially inspired by works on view. Participants are free to write on their own and then reconvene as a group to share and comment on each other's work. Please bring a journal or notebook, laptop, or tablet on which to write.

Instructor: Rick Benjamin, Poet

Ticket Cost:
General Admission: FREE

Writers of all levels are invited to participate in this informal exploration of the Museum's galleries as an impetus to writing. Each session is led by a visiting writer/facilitator who begins with a conversation and prompts, partially inspired by works on view. Participants are free to write on their own and then reconvene as a group to share and comment on each other's work. Please bring a journal or notebook, laptop, or tablet on which to write.

Instructor: Kara Mae Brown, author of short stories & essays

Ticket Cost:
General Admission: FREE

All skill levels are invited to experience the tradition of sketching from original works of art in current exhibitions. Museum Teaching Artists provide general guidance and all materials. Each program is open to 10 participants.

Ticket Cost:
General Admission: FREE