Bill Arning Exhibitions
Gallery History
Upon leaving the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston after a decade – and over three decades in not-for-profit arts sphere in Cambridge, New York and Houston—Arning founded Bill Arning Exhibitions. This radically untethered entity functioned as a nomadic curatorial practice in various other galleries, museums and alternative spaces globally before COVID realities paused travel.
Rather than ceasing making exhibits Arning opened a bricks and mortar space in Houston in October of the plague year, 2020 and indeed the reality of a new highly visible space in the spiritual heart of alternative and gay Houston has ushered in a new type of curating in Arning’s long career. Mixing live arts events such as poetry readings, dance, burlesque and stand up comedy Arning cherishes the community it fosters.
In the summer of 2022 a second space in Kinderhook opened in an 1812 storefront in the Hudson Valley. This space has a very different dynamic, being outside of a city, the space is generally visited by a mix of art folks who have opted to continue rural life post COVID and escapees from the city mixing culture in with hiking and leaf peeping. The space itself is more modest and appropriate for quieter art compared to the spectacular gestures demanded by the Houston space. Curatorially the two spaces work in concert to allow the artists Arning has championed for decades to reach their ideal audiences.
