Tim Youd's Performance Exhibition of Elmore Leonard's GET SHORT Set for Art Week Miami, 12/4-8

New York, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Santa Ana and now Miami; Artist Tim Youd continues his ongoing series of durational performances with his re-typing of Elmore Leonard's crime fiction classic Get Shorty as part of his literary performance art exhibition at the Coagula Curatorial Gallery room 218 (second floor) at the Aqua Art Fair during Art Week Miami, December 4th - 8th, 2013, located at 1530 Collins Ave Miami, FL 33139.

Artist Tim Youd performs the re-typing of entire novels on a single piece of paper, utilizing the same make and model typewriter used by the original author. In his process, Youd covers a piece of paper with a top sheet, so that the underlying page receives the indentation from the keys but not the ink, except where the typewriter keys break through the top sheet. The result is a highly formal yet very surprising diptych - the top sheet densely covered in ink, mirrored against a heavily indented but mostly un-inked page.

Geography is integral to the performance. Youd looks to conduct his retyping in a location germane to the author's life, or to some facet of the novel itself. For example, Youd's performance of Charles Bukowski's Post Office took place in the back of a rented pickup truck in the parking lot of the same downtown Los Angeles post office where Bukowski sorted mail for twelve years. This December in the Coagula Art booth at Aqua Art Miami, Tim Youd will create the Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty.

"When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio's on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off." So begins Get Shorty, one of Elmore Leonard's great classics, setting the opening of the story in the heart of Miami Beach. With Aqua Art Miami located on the very same South Collins Avenue where Chili Palmer had his leather jacket stolen, artist Tim Youd will retype the entirety of Get Shorty with a durational performance that will run throughout the course of the four days of the fair. Youd will use an IBM Wheelwriter 1000, which is the same make and model machine used by Leonard to write many of his novels. Accompanying the performance will be an installation of highly formal typewritten diptychs, relics of prior performances.

With Elmore Leonard's passing this past August, Youd's performance will serve as a tribute to America's pre-eminent crime writer. That Aqua Art Miami takes place in a motel makes the setting all the more appropriate, as many of Leonard's characters were no strangers to such accommodations. Accompanying the performance will be the completed diptychs of three other Florida situated Leonard novels: Out of Site, Maximum Bob and Rum Punch. Also on display will be Youd's sculpted "portrait" of the author's IBM Wheelwriter 1000.

Charles Bukowski's Women, Typed ink on paper, 25" x 17" (framed).