Otto and Emmett Ramstad, A Biography

Emmett and Otto were born twins in Norway in 1979, the year of the blizzard. You know, the blizzard of 1979 that wiped out all the power to the entire country and left folks cross-country skiing to neighbors’ houses for weeks. Anyhow, when Emmett and Otto were born the electricity had just turned off in the hospital. The hospital was small with wood panels and the electricity turned off at the moment of their birth. Darkness. The Ramstads’ mother, a conceptual artist living in Norway in a self-imposed exile from American capitalism, caught each of them and brought them to her breast following a vision of being a reindeer mother and proceeded to lick them clean. Nuzzled and safe the twins locked hands and spirits. However, this union was short lived, for after the electricity returned their father made a split second decision to move to the Arctic Circle, taking Emmett with him. Once there he invented a new split-kick ski trick and became famous for his ability to herd reindeer. Otto, on the other hand, moved to Guam with his mother while she worked on an art project meant to simulate post-capitalist society by teaching monkeys to make crafts communally and sell them on the fair trade market.

Pictured: Emmett and Otto Ramstad; Photo: Sean Smuda

Emmett spent his childhood riding reindeer. He became an especially keen observer of snowflake patterning. He found himself living in Minnesota as a teenager on a scholarship from the American Norwegian Embassy for Cross Cultural Art and Kin, in order to replicate snow patterns created inside ice fishing houses on Lake Minnetonka. Otto was used as a monkey handler by his mother and was highlighted in Artforum and other art digests for his site-specific installation work at a young age. Otto and his mother moved to San Francisco when he was fourteen. After leaving home, Otto moved to Minneapolis and began developing a movement-based art practice. At age twenty-three, the twins reconnected in the twin cities. They realized it was their dream to make art together. Symptom is the culmination of this dream.