STATEMENT
My sculptures explore intimate rituals of daily life. By using familiar and mundane materials—socks with holes, tissue boxes, bathroom stall doors, used towel dispensers, and drop-ceiling tiles—my sculptures subvert traditional gallery spaces and draw attention to practices and spaces that go unmentioned in art contexts. I make sculptures with recognizable objects that have been expanded, re-purposed and re-oriented to highlight body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space. How do we care for our bodies in ways that are unique, yet universal? How are unspoken histories of dirt and use concealed by notions of cleanliness and order?
This work is shaped by an interest in the history of queer archival practices and queer history. Post-AIDS, preserving queer culture has meant archiving even the most mundane or domestic objects as relics. Such relics function to mourn the dead, but also to imagine a queer futurity. These questions of archiving and domesticity are particularly relevant given the current political climate, where same-sex desire and gender nonconformity have become both resolutely normal and positioned as vulnerable.
Because the subject matter of my work is inspired by how people relate to each other in personal and public space, it is important that the work literally touches or has touched people. Thus, the sculptures I make are often participatory or interactive. By inviting visitors to fold socks in the gallery or answer a public telephone in a bathroom stall, I create opportunities for audiences to physically engage with the works. My sculptures foster a communal domestic space in the gallery and provoke visitors to share their own histories with the infrastructure of daily life.
My most recent work considers sites where individuals personally and physically interact with public spaces including public restrooms and doctor’s offices. This work has grown from discrete sculptures to large-scale installations utilizing architectural elements of buildings such as bathroom stalls and drop ceiling tiles, while maintaining the intimacy and use of recognizable household objects. Bathrooms, which have long been source material for my artworks, are sites of increasing public attention resulting from nationwide legislation that attempts to restrict trans people from using public facilities.
My sculptures explore intimate rituals of daily life. By using familiar and mundane materials—socks with holes, tissue boxes, bathroom stall doors, used towel dispensers, and drop-ceiling tiles—my sculptures subvert traditional gallery spaces and draw attention to practices and spaces that go unmentioned in art contexts. I make sculptures with recognizable objects that have been expanded, re-purposed and re-oriented to highlight body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space. How do we care for our bodies in ways that are unique, yet universal? How are unspoken histories of dirt and use concealed by notions of cleanliness and order?
This work is shaped by an interest in the history of queer archival practices and queer history. Post-AIDS, preserving queer culture has meant archiving even the most mundane or domestic objects as relics. Such relics function to mourn the dead, but also to imagine a queer futurity. These questions of archiving and domesticity are particularly relevant given the current political climate, where same-sex desire and gender nonconformity have become both resolutely normal and positioned as vulnerable.
Because the subject matter of my work is inspired by how people relate to each other in personal and public space, it is important that the work literally touches or has touched people. Thus, the sculptures I make are often participatory or interactive. By inviting visitors to fold socks in the gallery or answer a public telephone in a bathroom stall, I create opportunities for audiences to physically engage with the works. My sculptures foster a communal domestic space in the gallery and provoke visitors to share their own histories with the infrastructure of daily life.
My most recent work considers sites where individuals personally and physically interact with public spaces including public restrooms and doctor’s offices. This work has grown from discrete sculptures to large-scale installations utilizing architectural elements of buildings such as bathroom stalls and drop ceiling tiles, while maintaining the intimacy and use of recognizable household objects. Bathrooms, which have long been source material for my artworks, are sites of increasing public attention resulting from nationwide legislation that attempts to restrict trans people from using public facilities.
BIO
Emmett Ramstad’s sculpture and participatory works investigate the infrastructure of daily life by modifying the scale and function of familiar household objects. Ramstad lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has exhibited artworks nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Rochester Art Center. He is a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including a Franconia Sculpture Park Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists, a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Award, a Forecast Public Art Research and Development Grant, and an Art and Change grant from the The Leeway Foundation. He has performed in productions by The BodyCartography Project, made costumes and sets for five touring contemporary dance productions and has curated and organized numerous gallery shows. His work is in collections at The Minnesota Museum of American Art, The Weisman Art Museum, University of Michigan Library, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, MCAD and Second State Press. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Art at University of Minnesota.
Emmett Ramstad’s sculpture and participatory works investigate the infrastructure of daily life by modifying the scale and function of familiar household objects. Ramstad lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has exhibited artworks nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Rochester Art Center. He is a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including a Franconia Sculpture Park Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists, a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Award, a Forecast Public Art Research and Development Grant, and an Art and Change grant from the The Leeway Foundation. He has performed in productions by The BodyCartography Project, made costumes and sets for five touring contemporary dance productions and has curated and organized numerous gallery shows. His work is in collections at The Minnesota Museum of American Art, The Weisman Art Museum, University of Michigan Library, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, MCAD and Second State Press. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Art at University of Minnesota.