The Arts Center of the Capital Region

The Arts Center of the Capital Region is a private, not-for-profit corporation that began life as the Rensselaer County Council for the Arts in 1962. In our early years, we were located in a brownstone mansion on Troy’s Washington Park. Art classes were offered for the first time there in 1965, with the converted ballroom and formal dining rooms serving as a gallery.

Three decades later, we bought 5 adjoining buildings on Monument Square in downtown Troy and renovated nearly 36,000 square feet into fully-accessible studio, exhibition, and performing arts space. We also changed our name to The Arts Center of the Capital Region, recognizing that our classes, exhibits, and programs serve 30,000 people a year drawn from an 11-county region surrounding Troy.

Today, The Arts Center is proud to serve as a regional arts center, known for our wide range of high-quality classes for adults and children, arts camps for children and teens, highly acclaimed exhibitions and performances, and funding and technical support for arts organizations and artists. We offer classes and camps in 26 media in trimesters, with school break and summer camps for kids. We exhibit the work of local artists in our four galleries, with opening receptions open to the public during Troy Night Out every other month.

We have a robust public art program producing murals like Gems of Troy on the Hoosick Street overpass and the recent Troy Glow lighting exhibition that took place in Downtown Troy in December 2022/January 2023. In 2021, we opened a satelite location in North Central Troy called the Fish Market, named for the original sign from the old store which is still hanging. It was a vacent storefront we rehabed into an artist space/community center. Participating artists activate the space to engage with the community, create new work, and host special events throughout the duration of the project. 

The project’s primary goal is to create a space where artists and community can gather, and where the Arts Center can learn about our community’s needs, visions and hopes for their future. We hope to understand how the arts and the Arts Center can play a role in serving these needs and, in turn, respond with long term programming solutions. The future of the project is in the hands of the community, and we are excited to shape it—together.

We have something for everyone at the Arts Center; we hope to see you there soon!