By TimesLedger Staff
Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to name the head of the Queens Museum Monday to the post of cultural affairs commissioner for the city.
Tom Finkelpearl, 58, the museum’s president and executive director, has been there for 12 years.
A 2 p.m. news conference is scheduled at the museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park for the announcement.
“I applaud the mayor for this wise choice and congratulate Tom on this next phase of an already distinguished career,” City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) said in a statement. “I am proud to have supported his candidacy.”
Prior to running the Queens Museum, 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.
He also ran the city’s Percent for Art Program under mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani from 1990 to 1996. That program, which is managed by the Cultural Affairs Department, requires that 1 percent of the city-funded construction budget be spent on public artwork.
“Expanding access to culture and the arts is one of our city’s greatest challenges,” Van Bramer said. “Working together, Commissioner Finkelpearl, Mayor de Blasio and the City Council will accomplish great things with and for the arts in our city.”
