Tim Youd is a visual and performing artist who lives in Los Angeles and retypes the creative works of authors from all over the place. While in St. Louis, he is focused on authors with St. Louis connections — T.S. Eliot, Stanley Elkin, Marianne Moore and William S. Burroughs.
Youd’s unique performance art opened in the Front Room of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) Jan. 19, as he retyped “Collected Poems by T.S. Eliot” using the same kind of typewriter Eliot used—a Smith Corona Silent “flat top.”
It is Youd’s practice to work at specific sites that were part of the author’s history. So, for example, he moved his performance from CAM to Washington University’s campus to type Stanley Elkin’s “The Franchiser” on an Adler Satellite typewriter.
