By Alex Robinson
In addition to sculptor and museum director, Tom Finkelpearl can now add government agency commissioner to his résumé.
The Queens Museum executive director was appointed as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s commissioner of cultural affairs this week after 12 years at the museum.
“With his decades of experience in fortifying the city’s cultural institutions, Tom has developed a deep understanding of the powerful role art and culture play in moving our city forward, and the necessity of increasing access to our creative landmarks for all New Yorkers,” de Blasio told reporters, elected officials and members of the Queens arts community in the museum’s foyer.
Finkelpearl oversaw an eight-year, $69 million expansion of the museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The expansion, which was completed in the fall, enlarged the museum and spurred a 50 percent increase in the institution’s attendance, Finkelpearl said.
The mayor lauded Finkelpearl for his community outreach work in an effort to make Queens Museum more accessible and open.
“This museum exemplifies Queens and everything that is good about this borough,” he said. “In recent years, this museum became so much more. It became bigger. It became more central to the life of Queens. It became a museum that connected more deeply to the neighborhoods around it. It’s all because it had a visionary leader.”
Finkelpearl will be returning to a city agency that he served under mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani from 1990-96. During that time, he ran the city’s Percent for Art Program, which is managed by the city Department of Cultural Affairs and requires that 1 percent of the city’s construction budget be spent on public art.
The DCA is responsible for providing financial support to the city’s cultural nonprofits and has a budget of $156 million, much of which it disperses to hundreds of institutions.
Finkelpearl will replace Margaret Morton, who was serving as acting commissioner after Kate Levin left the position at the end of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s final term in office.
Levin served as the agency’s commissioner for 12 years under Bloomberg and made a total salary of $203,222 in her last year in the position, according to city records.
The new commissioner grew up in Massachusetts and attended Princeton University before getting his Masters of Fine Arts from Hunter College in Manhattan.
A sculptor by training, Finkelpearl served as a public affairs officer for Long Island City’s P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center — now MoMA PS1 — and as executive director of programs at Maine’s Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, before he moved on to the Queens Museum in 2002.
The mayor and Finkelpearl said they share similar views on the arts and both acknowledged that arts and culture are both an economic engine that attracts tourists to the city as well as something that is important on a personal level.
“New York City is one of the most eclectic and culturally rich cities in the world, and that’s something that should be shared by all New Yorkers and tourists alike,” Finkelpearl said. “I could not be more proud to return to DCLA and lead the department into an era of ever-increasing openness — to nourish cultural activities in every corner of the city for all to enjoy.”
The museum has not yet found a replacement for Finkelpearl, but will be putting together an interim strategy in the coming weeks to start the search for a new executive director.
Reach reporter Alex Robinson by e-mail at arobinson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
