POSTER HOUSE PRESENTS FREE FIRST FRIDAY ON APRIL 3, 2026 at Poster House

Poster House, the first museum in the United States dedicated to the global history of posters, will host its monthly, free “First Friday” event on April 3, 2026 from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM at Poster House, 119 West 23rd Street in Manhattan. On the first Friday of every month, Poster House offers free admission and extended hours for guests to explore the museum’s latest exhibitions and get in on the fun by attending a tour, workshop, performance, or activity throughout the day. The two main exhibitions currently on show are: Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen and Love & Fury: New York’s Fight Against AIDS – open through September 6, 2026. The two capsule exhibitions on show are: Utopia in Our Time: The Posters of Molly Crabapple and Art for Art House: The Posters of Peter Strausfeld.

Every First Friday is different, offering unique opportunities such as tours, workshops, performances, and activities, to further engage visitors with the exhibitions. First Friday activities for April 3rd  include: 

• 12:30-4:30pm: Drop-In Printmaking with Mikey Quackenboss

  • Visitors will be able to join a hands-on block-printing workshop inspired by the exhibitions Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen and Love & Fury: New York’s Fight Against AIDS. Artist Mikey Quackenboss will guide visitors through the process of printing bold mini posters using hand-carved blocks and water-based inks. Participants will have the chance to print from designs inspired by posters featured in the exhibitions, experimenting with color and layering to make their own set of prints.

• 1-2:30pm: COVERS—Memory Mixtape & Cover Collage Workshop

  • Inspired by COVERS BY MP3, this playful, hands-on workshop invites participants to create a mini CD keychain with a shareable memory playlist, paired with a self-designed album cover. In this workshop, participants will build a playlist of the music that has shaped their lives and collage an album cover inspired by the memories it evokes. Their design will then be transformed into a mini CD keychain that links to the playlist, allowing their personal soundtrack to be shared at the tap of a phone. Participants are welcome to bring 1–2 photos to scan and add to their collage.

• 3-4pm: Act Black Curatorial Tour

  • Join curator Es-pranza Humphrey for a special tour of her exhibition Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen, exploring how these often very rare posters from theater and film highlight the creative contributions and cultural impact of Black performers, writers, directors, and producers. Es-pranza will share the stories behind selected works and address some of the ways in which visual culture has both shaped and reflected Black performance across stage and screen.

• 3-6pm: Happy Hour at Café des Affiches

  • It’s Happy Hour at Café des Affiches! Every First Friday between 3pm and 6pm, visitors are invited to enjoy $2 off all alcoholic beverages in the museum’s café, including drinks inspired by the museum’s two newest exhibitions, Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen and Love & Fury: New York’s Fight Against AIDS. 

• 4-5:30pm: Monotype Printing Workshop

  • In this hands-on workshop, multimedia artist Sabrina Sims will guide participants through this expressive process while introducing such techniques as stenciling, masking, wet-on-wet blending, and subtractive layering. Inspired by the bold visual language found in Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen and Art for Art House: The Posters of Peter Strausfeld, participants will experiment with color, texture, and composition to create monoprints that reflect themes of storytelling, illustration, and independent film culture.

• 7-8pm: Max Fractal Performance Live at Poster House

  • Multihyphenate performer Max Fractal will come to Poster House for an evening of incomparable entertainment in connection with the exhibition Utopia in Our Time: The Posters of Molly Crabapple. This special presentation will bring Crabapple’s bold, visionary poster work into conversation with the music it has long inspired, offering an immersive experience in which visual art and live sound collide.