TOM FINKELPEARL
SOCIAL PRACTICE TEACING SCHOLAR-IIN-RESIDENCE AT CUNY
Wednesday, March 04, 2026
5:00 – 6:30 PM
The New School University Center
Room 601
63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
Tom Finkelpearl has worked for over four decades as an artist, curator, educator, museum director, and leader of a public funding agency. After earning his MFA at Hunter College, he organized fifteen exhibitions at PS1 in the 1980s and later managed more than 100 public art commissions at New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, expanding opportunities for artists and public-facing cultural work.
From 2002 to 2014, he served as Director of the Queens Museum, where he led a 50,000 square foot expansion and advanced the museum’s civic role.He returned to DCLA as Commissioner from 2014 to 2020 and oversaw nearly $2 billion in cultural funding. His books include Dialogues in Public Art and What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation. He is currently working on his third book examining the challenges facing American art museums.
This lecture is part of the MS Design and Urban Ecologies’ Urban Collouium II Spring 2026: State of Public Realms coordinated and instructed by Prof. Miodrag Mitrasinovic, Professor of Architecture and Urbanism.
