Texas Book Festival

The twentieth year of the Texas Book Festival celebrates authors and their contributions to the culture of literacy, ideas, and imagination.

Find out more about talks and signings at the museum by authors of arts-related books at texasbookfestival.org.

October 17 and 18 at The Contemporary Austin.

Events for Sunday, October 18

12–12:45P: Strange Pilgrims: What does it take to make art that is more than a painting on a wall? Art that is immersive, larger than life, and completely captures the complexities of the imagination? Journey into the minds of some of the artists behind The Contemporary Austin’s exhibition and accompanying catalogue Strange Pilgrims, an exhibition that reflects the complicated human journey through strange and unfamiliar spaces.

1:15–2P: The Luck Archive: Exploring Belief, Superstition, and Tradition: For the past few years artist Mark Menjivar has been exploring the concept of luck and archiving everything he finds. Menjivar has spent hours and days engaging people in airplanes, tattoo shops, bingo halls, international grocery stores, public parks, baseball stadiums, and voodoo shops–and out on the streets and in their homes. The physical archive now contains over 500 objects, stories, and photographs. Moderated by Lauren Cerand.

2:30–3:15P: Unbranded: Four friends on a wild mustang (as in horseback) journey over 3,000 miles, from Mexico to Canada. What resulted was a documentary and a gorgeous collection of photos of the vast landscapes. The man behind the whole plan, Ben Masters, is here to tell the tale. Moderated by Steven G. Kellman.

4–4:45P: Small Victories: With more than 6,000 gorgeous full color prints with bibliography and indices, this unique print reference book tells the story of a couple, Texan Dave H. Williams and his wife Reba White, and their journey to amass the world’s greatest collection of American Fine Art prints. Moderated by Thomas M. Hatfield

See events for Saturday, October 17.