This spring, celebrate your city at the American Folk Art Museum. Join us for a five-part series celebrating the contributions, communities, histories, cultures, music, and food of each of New York City’s five boroughs. This multi-day festival is offered in conjunction with the exhibition Made in New York City: The Business of Folk Art (March 15–July 28, 2019).

This series is free and open to all.

 

Queens Day Activities:

1 pm          New Perspectives with Teaching Fellows tour

1 pm         Baked goods supplied by Sensible Edibles Bakery (served until 4 pm)

3 pm         Gallery Talk with James and Karla Murray, architectural & interior photographers, authors & artists

4:30 pm   Beverages supplied by SingleCut Beersmiths (served until 7:30 pm)

5:30 pm   Free Music Friday

Dina Regine (vintage-fueled ride)
The Locksmiths (Americana singer/songwriter)
Joshua Garcia (folksinger/songwriter)

A special family scavenger hunt will be available all day long.

 

In addition to the activities at Lincoln Square, there will be a special tour of the exhibition New York Experienced at the Self-Taught Genius Gallery, 47-29 32nd Place, Long Island City, Queens, at 11 am.

 

James and Karla Murray are husband-and-wife architectural and interior photographers, authors, and multi-media artists based in New York City. For the past twenty-five years, they have focused their lens on the streetscape through portraits of storefronts and shop owners, and have strived to capture moments of city life that often go undocumented but capture the spirit, energy, and cultural diversity of individual neighborhoods. They made it their mission to thoroughly document unique “mom-and-pop” stores when they began to notice the alarming rate at which the shops were disappearing. Their critically acclaimed books include Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York (2009), Broken Windows: Graffiti NYC (2009), New York Nights (2012), and Store Front II: A History Preserved (2015). The authors’ landmark 2009 book, Store Front, was cited in Bookforum’s December/Jananuary 2015 issue as one of the “Exemplary Art Books from the Past Two Decades” and heralded as “One of the period’s most successful New York books.” New York Nights was the winner of the prestigious New York Society Library’s 2012 New York City Book Award.

James and Karla Murray’s work has been exhibited widely in major institutions and galleries, including solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Clic Gallery in New York City, The Storefront Project Gallery in New York City, and Fotogalerie Im Blauen Haus in Munich, Germany, and group shows at the New-York Historical Society, Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, California, and Brooklyn Historical Society. Their photographs are included in the permanent collections of major institutions, including the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the New York Public Library, and NYU Langone Medical Center. Their photography has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, London Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Daily News, New York Magazine, and The New Yorker. James and Karla were awarded the 2015 Regina Kellerman Award by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) in recognition of their significant contribution to the quality of life in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, Karla and James were awarded a Creative Engagement Manhattan Arts Grant by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Karla and James received the prestigious Art in the Parks: UNIQLO Park Expressions Grant in 2018 for their public art installation, Mom-and-Pops of the L.E.S.. James and Karla live in the East Village of Manhattan with their rescue dog Hudson.

 

Future Best of the Boroughs Event Dates:
Celebrate the Bronx, May 17
Celebrate Brooklyn, June 21
Celebrate Manhattan with our annual Summer Saturday event, July 20