Strange Pilgrims is an exhibition organized by The Contemporary Austin and spans multiple venues that include the museum's Jones Center and Laguna Gloria locations in addition to the Visual Arts Center.

The exhibition begins with the metaphorical notion of the traveler: an open-ended journey through strange and unfamiliar spaces, embarking on a pilgrimage not only in time and place but also through imagination, the senses, and perception. Strange Pilgrims brings together a collection of experiential-based ideas and projects proposing unconventional gestures and formats, defining “experiential art” as work that is immersive, participatory, performative, or kinetic, and favoring art from the vantage point of the phenomenological experience. Taking its title from a collection of twelve short stories of the same name by the writer Gabriel García Márquez, Strange Pilgrims is The Contemporary Austin’s first large-scale, thematic group exhibition.

Strange Pilgrims includes work by artists: Charles Atlas, Trisha Baga, Millie Chen, Phil Collins, Andy Coolquitt, Ayşe Erkmen, Roger Hiorns, Nancy Holt, Lakes Were Rivers, Angelbert Metoyer, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Paul Sharits, and Sofía Táboas.

Strange Pilgrims is organized by Heather Pesanti, Senior Curator, The Contemporary Austin, with text also by Pesanti.

Special venue support and artist-in-residence partnership has been provided through the Visual Arts Center in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Texas at Austin.

Hours vary by location. Visit thecontemporaryaustin.org for details.