Our top picks for the 9th Annual NY Art Book Fair

Get ready, get set, get artsy. The NY Art Book Fair kicks off tonight and runs through Sunday the 28th. If you like your weekend filled with live music, gorgeous books and basically all things at the intersection of beauty–and–brains, head over to MoMA PS1 for the free fair. For a full, detailed schedule, check out nyartbookfair.com. But if you just want to hit the handful of can’t-miss programs at this hip, jam-packed event, here are our selections.

• Thu 25 Live set by Thurston Moore & James Nares; Stage, 8pm
  The fair’s opening night presents one of the weekend’s biggest names when Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore plays with his collaborator James Nares. Get there early for a prime spot, and, if you're a devoted fan, Moore will also sign copies of his new chapbook of lyrics, The Best Day, at 7pm.
  
  
• Fri 26 Dorothy Iannone with Trinie Dalton and Lisa Pearson; Classroom, 6pm
  Explicit, erotic, taboo-breaking: These words all describe Iannone’s artwork. The octogenarian, who has been called “the original bad girl,” will exhibit in the Dome at PS1 during the fair, and Friday evening, she talks with writer Dalton and her publisher, Pearson, about the new book collecting her transgressive work: You Who Read Me with Passion Now Must Forever Be My Friends.
  
  
• Sat 27 Keynote: R. H. Quaytman and Susan Howe; 3rd Floor Gallery, 6pm
  The Contemporary Artists’ Book Conference runs in conjunction with the fair and, believe it or not, is also free, for all of you interested in more intellectual discussions of art-book culture. Or even if you're not. Either way, the keynote address features a lively and assuredly intimate conversation between Quaytman and her mother, poet Susan Howe, on their new collaborative publication Tom Tit Tot.
  
  
• Sun 28 Jem Cohen and Sadie Benning; Classroom, 2pm
  Spend your Sunday afternoon feeding your mind! Two stellar magazines of art and literature, BOMB and The White Review, bring in these lauded experimental filmmakers for a conversation about identity, memory and their work.
  
  
• Sun 28 Guerrilla Girls; Classroom, 6pm
  Are you prepared to fangirl the fuck out? The iconic Guerrilla Girls—a collective of female artists who have been fighting sexism and discrimination for nearly 30 years—will put on a brief presentation and answer audience questions, like, “Why are you and your art so amazing?”
  
  
• On display all weekend
  Boo-Hooray (an organization and publisher dedicated to the preservation of recent cultural movements) will exhibit Lenny Kaye’s science fiction fanzine collection. Kaye, of the Patti Smith Group, has amassed an unbelievable collection of historic zines published from 1941–1969—sweet nectar for the nerds in all of us.