Hear artist Tim Youd and Karin Campbell, Joslyn's Phil Willson Curator of Contemporary Art, discuss 100 Novels and Youd's Nebraska cycle.
About Tim Youd: 100 Novels
In 2013, artist Tim Youd (American, born 1967) embarked on a ten-year endeavor to retype one hundred great novels. Using the same (or similar) make and model typewriter used by the authors for their original transcripts, Youd dedicates anywhere from several days to multiple weeks to completing a book in a location relevant to its subject or writer. The artist retypes each novel on a single sheet of paper backed by a second sheet. As the papers are run repeatedly through the typewriter, the top sheet is saturated with ink, while the undersheet becomes embossed. At the end of the performance, Youd separates the two papers and mounts them side-by-side, creating a diptych that serves as a relic of his extended engagement with the book. The entire novel is present, yet completely illegible.
Aptly titled 100 Novels, this project allows Youd to participate in close, devotional readings of the selected books. The artist explains: “Most people have had the out-of-body experience that occurs during the course of an engrossing read. It is a transportation to a higher plane of consciousness, an equivalent to religious ecstasy . . . [This project] is at its heart an effort to be truly present in the reading.”
For his Nebraska performance cycle, the artist will retype three novels by Willa Cather over the course of approximately six weeks beginning in April 2022. Born in Virginia in 1873, Cather moved with her family to Webster County, Nebraska, in 1883 and graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1895. Youd will begin his homage to the author in Lincoln, where he will work with the Willa Cather Archive and The Cather Project (both University of Nebraska–Lincoln programs) to retype the 1913 novel O Pioneers! Youd will continue to Red Cloud, Nebraska, home of The Willa Cather Foundation, to complete The Song of the Lark, written in 1915. His Nebraska residency will conclude in Omaha, where Youd will occupy the northeast corner of Howard Street and 11th Street in the Old Market for ten to twelve days to retype Cather’s 1918 novel My Ántonia. Working in public spaces, Youd welcomes interactions with passers-by, who often stop to talk to the artist as he pursues his self-described “literary pilgrimage."
Youd's retyping of three novels by Willa Cather in Nebraska are the 72nd, 73rd and 74th performances from the artist’s 100 Novels project. The Nebraska cycle is a partnership between Cristin Tierney Gallery, Joslyn Art Museum, National
Willa Cather Center, and Willa Cather Archive.
What's Pictured Above: Tim Youd retyping John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, 2015, New Orleans