Photo by Flickr user Shinya Suzuki
The Upper East Side’s Museum Mile Festival will return this year on June 28 from 9am to 9pm, presenting a mix of virtual and in-person festivities taking place at eight institutions along Fifth Avenue. This year’s event marks the 43rd annual Museum Mile Festival.
The day-long celebration of art and culture will feature live and pre-recorded programs, virtual exhibition tours, live musical performances, and activities for all ages. The content will be streamed across museum websites and social media pages, and will include some in-person outdoor programming. Culture enthusiasts from around the world will be able to continue joining New Yorkers for this one-of-a-kind celebration. Audiences can follow the hashtag.
“The Museum Mile Festival has attracted joyful crowds of New Yorkers for more than 40 years,” said Cultural Affairs Commissioner Gonzalo Casals. “This year, as our city recovers, Museum Mile will offer opportunities both to engage with live programming, and for people far and wide to participate online. Culture is at the center of New York’s recovery, and we are grateful to the institutions and cultural workers who are committed to bringing us this staple of the city’s cultural scene.”
The Africa Center
Photo by Ajay Suresh via Wikimedia Commons
The Africa Center presents “Home Is Where The Music Is,” a special multimedia presentation and discussion celebrating the sounds of Africa and its Diaspora interspersed with photography, art, video, and music featuring broadcaster Georges Collinet and media hub for African music, Jolly Papa. The “Home Is…” series kicked off on World Africa Day on May 25th and will run through Juneteenth, the annual celebration that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved Africans in the United States. The series connects World Africa Day to Juneteenth, two celebrations that are significant to both people of African descent around the world and people of African descent in the United States.
theafricacenter.org, 1280 Fifth Avenue between 109th and 110th Street Streets
El Museo del Barrio
Photo by The Fixers (Wikis Take Manhattan 2009 participant) via Wikimedia Commons
Currently on view through September 26th, ESTAMOS BIEN – LA TRIENAL 20/21 is El Museo’s first national survey of Latinx art, featuring more than 40 artists from across the United States and Puerto Rico, and addressing such pressing issues as identity politics, gentrification and displacement, climate change, as well as the particular effects of the global pandemic, especially as it relates to Latinx populations. As part of La Trienal, the Museum will present recorded interviews with participating artist Candida Alvarez; a virtual tour of the exhibition by the Curators; and an in-person outdoor performance by NYC-based Afro-Caribbean group San Simón at Central Park’s Harlem Meer at 6pm.
elmuseo.org, 1230 Fifth Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets
Museum of the City of New York
Photo by Beyond My Ken via Wikimedia Commons
The Museum of the City of New York’s virtual events include encores of the Museum’s live-streamed series, Curators from the Couch, featuring the Museum’s Deputy Director and Chief Curator Sarah Henry and writer, media personality and window dresser Simon Doonan, who discuss the Museum’s famed Stettheimer Dollhouse; conversations with playwright Lynn Nottage and Knicks players Bill Bradley, Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe with Harvey Araton—both part of the MCNY Live series; and finally, a workshop for all ages with photographer Janette Beckman who speaks about her creative process and how to tell stories through the camera as part of the MCNY Kids Create series.
mcny.org, 1220 Fifth Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets
The Jewish Museum
Photo by Ajay Suresh via Wikimedia Commons
Hear artist Lawrence Weiner talk about his career and the current public art installation ALL THE STARS IN THE SKY HAVE THE SAME FACE on view on the Jewish Museum facade; listen to award-winning actor Rachel Weisz bring Louise Bourgeois’s words to life in an audio guide made in conjunction with the exhibition “Louise Bourgeois, Freud’s Daughter”; hear Edmund de Waal and Adam Gopnik in conversation on the occasion of de Waal’s new book “Letters to Camondo”; watch videos of poet Douglas Ridloff responding to the Jewish Museum collection in ASL; hear from a panel of community activists, cultural theorists, and artists discussing the impact of public artworks and the role of museums in achieving equity; and watch virtual performances for families by Aaron Nigel Smith and Joanie Leeds. Families can create at-home art activities and more.
thejewishmuseum.org, 1109 Fifth Avenue between 92nd and 93rd Streets
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Photo by ajay_suresh
Events include the kick-off of the virtual Studio Series: Quilting program with multidisciplinary artist William Daniels (free with advance registration). Participants will plan, sketch, and develop their own quilting blocks, receiving demonstration and feedback from Daniels himself. Additional pre-recorded programs include a Design at Home video and Learning Lab activity inspired by the colorful pattern designs of Suzie Zuzek, who will be the subject of a forthcoming exhibition, Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints That Made the Fashion Brand; the Rebellion in Design: Developing a Blueprint for the Future design talk with Virgil Abloh, James Wines and Oana Stănescu, held in conjunction with the exhibition, Willi Smith: Street Couture; and a virtual exhibition tour of Contemporary Muslim Fashions.
cooperhewitt.org, 2 East 91st Street @ the corner of Fifth Avenue
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Events include Summer Solstice, a live virtual tour exploring works in the Guggenheim collection which feature the sun and light. The live program will include closed captions and images will be verbally described; an audio guide (7 tracks) for Off the Record, an exhibition that brings together the work of contemporary artists from the Guggenheim’s collection who interrogate, revise, or otherwise query dominant narratives and the transmission of culture through official “records”; “Spotlight” video series featuring Guggenheim Abu Dhabi collection artists; and a pre-recorded conversation with curator Vivien Greene and scholar Maile Arvin as part of the Artwork Anthology series about In the Vanilla Grove, Man and Horse (1891) by Paul Gauguin. In addition, explore the Museum’s series of recent videos and blogs, get to know the collection through a curator’s eyes with the One Artwork, One Question series, and experience Holography: How Artists Sculpt with Light, Space, and Time.
guggenheim.org, 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets
Neue Galerie New York
Photo by Ajay Suresh via Wikimedia Commons
Events include a range of virtual offerings, from online lectures and cooking lessons, to crafting activities and concerts, all available at neuegalerie.org/programs. Neue Galerie New York will reopen on June 10, and visitors are now welcome to register in advance for timed tickets.
neuegalerie.org, 1048 Fifth Avenue @ 86th Street
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Events include virtual silent exhibition tours of The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing Tour and The Roof Garden Commission: Alex Da Corte, As Long as the Sun Lasts Tour; an artist interview with Carol Bove, discussing The séances aren’t helping, a part of The Facade Commission; as well as #MetKids programming, featuring How Do You Dance in Armor? an interview of performers by kids, and How Did They Get All This Art into the Museum? an interview of Met staff by kids, and more.
metmuseum.org, 1000 Fifth Avenue between 81st and 82nd Streets
