The Los Angeles-based artist Tim Youd is in the middle of a ten-year performance series entitled 100 Novels—a quest to retype 100 novels on the same make and model of typewriter their authors used to create them. The artist, who calls his work a “tension between the formal and the whimsical”, types the entire novel on to one sheet of paper, repeatedly run through the typewriter, with another slipped underneath. The process creates a soaked top sheet and an under-sheet with seeped ink and embossments; they are eventually displayed as a diptych. Youd, who performs at locations related to the stories, is visiting New York this summer to complete his Italian Cycle by retyping Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley (in a reverse trip of the protagonist Tom Ripley’s journey from New York to Venice). He is due to perform at the Cristin Tierney Gallery (13-21 July) in a solo show, Ecstatic Reading, which also includes a display of his related work (until 18 August). This will be Youd’s 52nd book, four years into the project—so he is currently ahead of his mark.
