​“Emmett Ramstad is a recipient of a 2022 McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists, funded by The McKnight Foundation and administered by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.”

I am over the moon thrilled to have been selected as a 2022 McKnight Fellowship Artist alongside Ruthann Godollei, Pao Houa Her, Amanda Lovelee, Lamar Peterson, and Jonathan Thunder by visiting jurors Jongwoo Jeremy Kim, Associate Professor of Art History and Theory, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; Julio César Morales, artist and Curator of Visual Arts at Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe; and Katie Pfohl, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, New Orleans Museum of Art.

Don't miss the second midwest performance of Jerker at Quatrefoil Library! June 8th at 7pm, followed by discussion and reception in the library. 

Chicago performance at Leather Archives & Museum with guest Charles Ryan Long. Photo by Ivan Bujan

Artists Maxe Crandall and Emmett Ramstad present a semi-staged reading of Robert Chesley’s 1986 play Jerker, or The Helping Hand: A Pornographic Elegy with Redeeming Social Value and a Hymn to the Queer Men of San Francisco in Twenty Phone Calls, Many of Them Dirty. Jerker tells the story of two strangers who develop an erotic fraternal relationship through phone sex. As the two characters get each other off, they demonstrate the power of sexual fantasy in processing the grief, rage, and loneliness of living in pandemic.

Inspired by their obsession with Robert Chesley’s archive at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco and supported by a Eureka Commission from Onassis USA, Ramstad and Crandall are at work on a performance installation focused on “corresponding intimacies,” a term they use to describe deep bonds people create through experimental relations. This event launches their national tour, which is organized to provide free performances at archives and queer/trans spaces while allowing them to conclude their research. 

This reading of Jerker is given courtesy of Victor Bumbalo of the Robert Chesley Foundation, Broadway Play Publishing Inc., and through funding from the Eureka Commission from Onassis Foundation USA. 

65 min semi-staged reading followed by 25 min discussion.

Content Warning: graphic sexual description, kinky/BDSM scenarios, death, AIDS 

I will be updating my blog with dates and information, but save the dates:
CHICAGO @ Leather Archives and Museum: Saturday June 4th, 7pm
MINNEAPOLIS @ Quatrefoil Library: Wednesday June 8th, 7pm
PHILLY and NYC: TBA- third week of August
SAN FRANCISCO: TBA- September or October?

I am honored to be asked to do a virtual studio visit with Second State Press! I used to be a FOB holder at SSP and it is great to be going back. I hope you can join! Here is the eventbrite link for the talk: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-studio-visit-with-emmett-ramstad-tickets-222214669057

Come join me for the opening of The Human Scale at Rochester Art Center! ​https://rochesterartcenter.org/exhibition/the-human-scale/

In 2011 I curated a show called "5 Objects and a Story" at Million Fishes in San Francisco. I came across this picture documenting the show recently and was reminiscing about how much this show shaped my current practice. This shot captures me and Ariel Springfield's collections. Mine are the brushes, spools of beige thread, the foot forms and the dust pan. Cleanliness, function, repair, yes yes yes. What you can't see here is the pile of invaginated white socks that I would work on/with for the next 5 years. Memories! 

Maxe Crandall and I were awarded an Eureka Commission from Onassis USA for: Twenty Phone Calls and Many of Them Dirty, a performance installation created by playwright Maxe Crandall and visual artist Emmett Ramstad about intimacy, community building, and pleasure in times of isolation. HOOOOOOOOORRRRRRAAAAAAYYYYYYYY. Stay tuned for more information. 

I am so pleased to be on the Compas roster of amazing artists! Read my spotlight interview for an overview of how my teaching and sculpture work together. Hooray for arts and education!

I am looking out my window at the snow falling and thinking about how things felt when it was warm still. This is a picture of me and Travis McEwen on my shitter sculpture during our studio exhibition Dry Fingers. No shoes! Bare legs! Art together!