37th Annual MUSEUM MILE FESTIVAL Set for Today

Now celebrating its 37th year, the annual Museum Mile Festival takes place rain or shine today, June 9, 2015, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

Over 1.5 million people have taken part in this annual celebration since its inception. Festival attendees can walk the Mile on Fifth Avenue between 82nd Street and 105th Street while visiting nine of New York City's finest cultural institutions, which are open free to the public throughout the evening. The Museum Mile Festival's opening ceremony takes place at 5:45pm at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (2 East 91st Street). Traditionally, the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and other city and state dignitaries open the Festival. Details on the Festival's offerings can be found at MuseumMileFestival.org.

Fifth Avenue is closed to traffic and becomes a strollers' haven. Special exhibitions and works from permanent collections are on view inside the museums' galleries and live music from jazz to Broadway tunes to string quartets is featured in front of several of the museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Neue Galerie New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; National Academy Museum & School; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; The Jewish Museum; The Museum of the City of New York; El Museo del Barrio; and the Africa Center are the nine institutions participating in this highly successful collaboration.

Additional street entertainers perform along Fifth Avenue all evening. Exhibitions on view include: Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa-Art and Film, highlighting the work of Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa through feature film clips, stills, and paintings by Figueroa as well by eminent Mexican artists of the mid-20th century such as Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Edward Weston, and Tina Modotti, at El Museo del Barrio; Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks, a comprehensive exploration of New York City's landmark preservation movement, at the Museum of the City of New York; Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television, the first exhibition to explore how avant-garde art influenced and shaped the look and content of network television in its formative years, from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s, at The Jewish Museum; How Posters Work, which shows how designers from pioneers such as Herbert Matter, Paul Rand, Philippe Apeloig and M/M (Paris) to lesser-known makers have used principles of composition, perception, and storytelling to convey ideas and construct experiences through posters, at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Storylines: Contemporary Art at The Guggenheim, examining how artists forge new paradigms for storytelling through installation, painting, photography, sculpture, video, and performance, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; The Annual 2015: the Depth of the Surface, featuring recent works by National Academicians, the premier artists and architects in America, encompassing all artistic media, at the National Academy Museum & School; Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold, an intimate exhibition devoted to the close relationship that existed between the artist and one of his key subjects and patrons, at Neue Galerie; and China: Through the Looking Glass, exploring how China has fueled the fashionable imagination for centuries, featuring more than 130 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear fashion alongside Chinese art and film clips, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Established in 1978 to increase public awareness of its member institutions and promote public support of the arts, the Museum Mile Festival serves as a model for similar events across the country. For details on the Festival's offerings, the public may call212-606-2296 or visit MuseumMileFestival.org.

EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW:

El Museo del Barrio: Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa-Art and Film

Museum of the City of New York: Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks; Hip-Hop Revolution: Photographs by Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper; Everything is Design: The Work of Paul Rand; Activist New York; Gilded New York; Timescapes

The Jewish Museum: Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television; Repetition and Difference; Laurie Simmons: How We See; Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings: Chantal Joffe; Masterpieces & Curiosities: Nicole Eisenman's Seder;Sights and Sounds; Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey; for children, Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum: How Posters Work; Making Design; Passion for the Exotic: Lockwood de Forest, Frederic Church; Immersion Room; Hewitt Sisters Collect; Models & Prototypes Gallery; Process Lab; Designing the New Cooper Hewitt

National Academy Museum: The Annual 2015: The Depth of the Surface; and 2015 Year-End Exhibition

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: Storylines: Contemporary Art at The Guggenheim

Neue Galerie New York: Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold; and Russian Modernism: Cross-Currents in German and Russian Art, 1907-1917

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: China: Through the Looking Glass; Roof Garden Commission: Pierre Huyghe; Fatal Attraction: Piotr Ukla?ski Selects from the Met Collection; and Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy