NEW YORK, NY.- Cristin Tierney Gallery announced representation of Los Angeles-based artist Tim Youd. Known for his work in visual art and performance, Youd will be staging performances of 100 Novels in Europe and the United States throughout 2017. In May, Youd will retype Patricia Highsmith’s Those Who Walk Away in Venice during the Biennale previews in collaboration with the Hanes Art Gallery at Wake Forest University. In July, Cristin Tierney Gallery will debut Youd’s first solo exhibition in New York City.

In his 100 Novels project, Youd retypes 100 novels over a ten-year period while concurrently compiling a body of related sculptures, paintings, and drawings. During the extended performances, the artist retypes selected novels on the same make and model typewriter the author used, in a location charged with literary significance specific to the subject matter. Each novel is retyped on single sheet of paper and laid on top of a second sheet, which is run repeatedly through the typewriter. As the typing progresses, the top sheet becomes saturated with ink while the sheet underneath becomes embossed with indentation. Upon completion, the two sheets are separated and mounted side-by-side. This diptych serves as a relic of the performance, containing all of the artist’s keystrokes within the rectangular form of two pages of an open book. The whole novel is present, but entirely illegible.

Youd will spend the spring retyping a total of four novels, starting with a special performance in Venice during the previews of the 57th Biennale. From May 11th through the 19th, he will type Patricia Highsmith’s Those Who Walk Away on the boat dock of Wake Forest University’s Casa Artom, a stunning 19th century residence situated directly on the Grand Canal, adjacent to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The performance is curated by Paul Bright, Director of Wake Forest University’s Hanes Art Gallery in Winston-Salem, NC.

Following the performance at Casa Artom, Youd will conduct an extensive tour of Italy where he will publicly retype John Williams’ Augustus, Elizabeth Von Arnim’s The Enchanted April, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Youd’s debut exhibition with Cristin Tierney Gallery opens in July 2017. It will feature a selection of the artist’s new and recent paintings, diptychs, and drawings, and will be anchored by his retyping of Mario Puzo’s early novel The Fortunate Pilgrim in locations throughout Manhattan. Inspired by Puzo’s mother’s history, the novel details the Italian-American immigrant experience in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City in the early twentieth century.

In fall 2017, the diptychs created during Youd’s “Italian cycle” will travel, with select drawings and paintings, to the Hanes Art Gallery at Wake Forest University for a solo exhibition. In spring 2018, Youd will bring his 100 Novels project to The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, with multiple retyping performances throughout the Hudson Valley.

To date, Youd (b. 1967, Worcester, MA) has retyped 48 novels at various locations in the United States and Europe. He has been in residence at various historic writer’s homes, including William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak with the University of Mississippi Art Museum (Oxford, MS), Flannery O’Connor’s Andalusia with SCAD (Milledgeville and Savannah, GA), and Virginia Woolf’s Monk’s House (Rodmell, Sussex). His work has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions, including the New Orleans Museum of Art, Monterey Museum of Art, Hemingway-Pfeffer Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, University of Mississippi Art Museum at Rowan Oak, and the Lancaster Museum of Art and History. He has presented and performed his 100 Novels project at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) and LAXART, and just finished retyping Joe Orton’s Collected Plays at The Queen’s Theatre with MOCA London. He lives and works in Los Angeles.