NEW YORK, NY.- Now celebrating its 34th year, the annual Museum Mile Festival takes place rain or shine on Tuesday, June 12, 2012, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Over 1.5 million people have taken part in this annual celebration since its inception. Festival attendees can walk the Mile 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, as well as to 110th Street, the site of Museum Mile's newest museum, the Museum for African Art, where they will be greeted by music and outdoor art activities. Several other participating museums will also offer outdoor art activities for children.

The Museum Mile Festival’s opening ceremony takes place at 5:45 pm at National Academy Museum & School ( Fifth Avenue at 89th Street ). Traditionally, the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and other city and state dignitaries open the Festival.

El Museo del Barrio; The Museum of the City of New York; The Jewish Museum; Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution; National Academy Museum & School; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Neue Galerie New York; Goethe-Institut New York/German Cultural Center; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art are the nine institutions participating in this highly successful collaboration. (The Goethe-Institut New York has moved to an interim location.) The Museum for African Art, opening in its new home in a year, has joined the Museum Mile Festival as its newest member.

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. Additional street entertainers perform along Fifth Avenue all evening. Festival attendees will be among the first to see Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, examining the visual arts and aesthetic development across the Caribbean and considering the histories of the Spanish, French, Dutch and English islands and their diasporas, at El Museo del Barrio, opening that evening. Other exhibitions on view include: Capital of Capital: New York’s Banks and the Creation of a Global Economy, which will explore the historic factors that led to the emergence of New York City as the world’s leading financial center, at The Museum of the City of New York; Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940, featuring key works by one of the 20th century’s great painters, at The Jewish Museum; Women's Work, including Mary Cassatt - Graphic Artist, Colleen Browning: Urban Dweller, Exotic Traveler, May Stevens: The Big Daddy Series, Women Sculptors of the National Academy and From Protest to Process: Recent Gifts by Women Academicians, as well as White: The Anatomy of a Color and the second rotation of An American Collection, at the National Academy Museum & School; Francesca Woodman, the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s brief but extraordinary career to be seen in North America, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Heinrich Kuehn and His American Circle: Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, the Neue Galerie’s second ever photography show and a stunning survey of work illustrating Kuehn’s role both within the Viennese avant-garde, and the international development of photography as an art form; and Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations, which explores the impact of two Italian designers from different eras on contemporary notions of fashionability by comparing and contrasting 90 of their signature designs, 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 further information, the public may call 212-606-2296 or visit the festival Web site at MuseumMileFestival.org.

MUSICAL ENTERTAINERS will perform in front of these participating institutions:
• 104th Street El Museo del Barrio – DJ Stormin Norman

• 92nd Street The Jewish Museum – Quarteto Rodriguez Cuban Jewish All Stars

• 89th Street National Academy Museum & School – Hayes Greenfield Jazz Band

• 88th Street The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum – Experimental rock/soul band People's Champs

• 86th Street Neue Galerie New York – Pianist David Kaplan

A wide variety of additional entertainers will be featured along "Museum Mile" that evening, including: Fredo the Magician (83rd Street); Random Richards Ramble (86th Street); Juggler Josh (87th Street); Daisy Doodle’s Parties, Magic, Facepainting & Balloons (89th Street); Silly Billy the Very Funny Clown (90th Street); Sammie & Tudie’s Imagination Playhouse (93rd Street); and Paul Labarbera and Rockbeat Music Group (100th Street).

FAMILY ACTIVITIES:
There will also be an array of outdoor activities for Museum Mile Festival attendees: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will offer shape and nature motif hunts that investigate the architecture of the building, and a chalk drawing project. Figure drawing with a live model and chalk drawing will take place at the National Academy Museum & School. Visitors to The Jewish Museum can create patterned works of art inspired by the paintings of artists Kehinde Wiley and Edouard Vuillard. The Museum of the City of New York invites children to help fill in a giant chalk outline of Manhattan ’s street grid. El Museo del Barrio will offer art-making, gallery exploration, a photo booth, performance art and DJ Stormin Norman spinning live on the street.

EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW:
El Museo del Barrio: Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, presented in collaboration with Queens Museum of Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem; and Voces Y Visiones: Gran Caribe

Museum of the City of New York: Capital of Capital: New York ’s Banks and the Creation of a Global Economy and The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan , 1811-2011

The Jewish Museum: Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940; Kehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel; Sanford Biggers and Jennifer Zackin: a small world...; Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey; and for children, Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum: The exhibition galleries and Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden will be closed due to Cooper-Hewitt’s RE:DESIGN, the most ambitious renovation project in the Museum’s history which will provide enlarged and enhanced facilities for exhibitions, collections display, education programming and the National Design Library, and an increased endowment. During the renovation, Cooper-Hewitt’s usual schedule of exhibitions, education programs and events will be staged at various off-site locations, including Graphic Design-Now in Production on view on Governors Island from May 26 to September 3. Visit cooperhewitt.org for additional information.

National Academy Museum & School: Women's Work, including Mary Cassatt - Graphic Artist, Colleen Browning: Urban Dweller, Exotic Traveler, May Stevens: The Big Daddy Series, Women Sculptors of the National Academy and From Protest to Process: Recent Gifts by Women Academicians; White: The Anatomy of a Color; and the second rotation of An American Collection,

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949-1960; Francesca Woodman; From the Archives: Artist Awards and Acquisitions, 1956-1987; the Thannhauser Collection; and A Year with Children 2012

Neue Galerie New York: Heinrich Kuehn and His American Circle: Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations

The Goethe-Institut New York is still at its interim location at 72 Spring Street, 11th Floor. Nevertheless, for the Museum Mile Festival the Goethe-Institut will be present at its former building on 1014 Fifth Avenue , providing information about its new venues, programs, activities, and library.