For Museum Mile, pricey exhibits go free in NYC

NEW YORK - Nine of New York’s often pricey museums will throw their doors open cost free - but just for one evening - organizers said Wednesday.

The annual Museum Mile Festival on June 12 will see mainstays like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum, as well as El Museo del Barrio and the Jewish Museum suspend charges for three hours.

Other museums, including the newly housed Museum for African Art, will join in with music and outdoor attractions.

The city’s famed Fifth Avenue will be closed to vehicles and will feature jazz, Broadway tunes and classical ensembles in front of the museums.

Meanwhile, Argentine artist Tomas Saraceno has combined art, architecture and science in a striking installation on the rooftop garden of The Metropolitan Museum of Art that gives visitors a different perspective of the sky, clouds and the city around them.

“Cloud City,” which opened last week and runs for six months, is a giant jumble of interconnecting modules, measuring 54-foot long and 28-foot high, that rises to varying levels and incorporates reflective materials, mirrors and glass with New York’s skyline and Central Park as the backdrop. Visitors can enter and walk through the spheres in what Saraceno described as a way to experience connections and relations that make it appear you are not where you are.

“Upside down, Central Park is a flying garden embedded in a cumulus cloud [and] mirrored buildings and skies appear under your feet,” he said.

AFP, Reuters