ABOUT
Ryan Standfest is an artist and publisher who lives and works in Detroit, Michigan. His upbringing in a working-class family that reaches back several generations in Detroit and in the copper mining communities of the upper peninsula of Michigan, has informed his practice as he responds to the lingering effects of broken manufacturing economies. In 2020, the Detroit-based Simone DeSousa Gallery (now Matéria) published a monograph of his work. Standfest’s public mural Supply & Demand can be seen on Michigan Avenue in Southwest Detroit. In 2010, he founded the small publishing house Rotland Press, for which he has edited a collection of comic strips by artist and filmmaker David Lynch, two volumes of political prints by Sue Coe, and a collection of early satirical cartoons by Swiss artist H.R. Giger. The press has been recognized in Art In America, Hyperallergic, The New York Times, and PRINT. As an arts writer, Standfest has authored arts criticism and essays, appearing in numerous art and culture journals. He contributed a chapter to the book Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance, edited by Elliott H. King and Abigail Susik (Penn State University Press, 2022). Standfest earned an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Iowa in Iowa City and a BFA in Printmaking and Drawing from Wayne State University in Detroit. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
STATEMENT
Having come of age in a collapsing industrial metropolis, and raised within the abject evolution of the working class and socio-economic disintegration, my work arises from the trauma of modernity and the residual pain and loss that defines our national post-industrial landscapes. As the dust perpetually settles on the ruins of the post war dream, its particles are of an optimism once trumpeted—in design, in industry—that advertised a Modernist narrative of utopian progress. Because my experience has been shaped by the pairing of that progress with ruin, and idealization with imperfection, it is impossible for me to produce nostalgic or sublime expressions. Therefore, I strive to create unheroic remembrances and reconstructions from the accumulated psychic wreckage, transforming somber enormities into images rendered small and absurd.
CV
SOLO / TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
- 2025 As then there was no then, so there is none now., Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, Birmingham, MI
- 2024 The Tyranny of Small Decisions: Ryan Standfest/Jeanette Strezinski, Galerie Camille, Detroit, MI
- 2024 Illustrations Without a Text, 27th Letter Books, Detroit, MI
- 2024 From Stope to Spoil Tip, Wigley-Fleming Fine Arts Gallery, Luther College, Decorah, IA
- 2022-2023 When Day Is Done, Galerie Camille/Papier Galerie, Detroit, MI
- 2022 There's Nothing So Bad That It Can't Grow Worse, Hatch Art, Hamtramck, MI
- 2022 Dumpster Fire, Southeastern Community College, Burlington, IL
- 2020 I Went to Work But I Did Not Get There, Simone DeSousa Gallery/EDITION, Detroit, MI
- 2018 This Must Not Be The Place You Thought It Would Be, Art Dept. Gallery, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
- 2017 Random Negotiations Toward an Unreasonable Happiness, Hatch Art, Hamtramck, MI
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
- 2024 Slight of Hand, curated by Mepaintsme, mepaintsme.com (online)
- 2024 95th Michigan Contemporary Art Exhibition, Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI
- 2024 Art Fair|Detroit, organized by Art Club, Newlab, Detroit, MI
- 2022 Printmaking in the Twenty-First Century, curated by Clare Rogan, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI- 2020 Art @the Max VII, curated by Steve Panton, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit, MI
- 2019 Portray, Wasserman Projects, Detroit, MI
- 2019 Worlds Apart, curated by Karen Kunc, Constellation Studios, Lincoln, NE
- 2018 A Conspiracy of Accidents, Popps Packing, Hamtramck, MI
- 2018 The Contemporary Print 2018, O2 Gallery, Austin, TX
- 2018 EDITION 2018, Simone DeSousa Gallery, Detroit, MI
- 2018 The Supplies of Viable Living, curated by Jeremy Chen, Catich Gallery, St. Ambrose University, Davenport, IA
- 2018 Vitrine, curated by Brendan Fay and Amy Sacksteder, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI
- 2017 Conspire, Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, FL
- 2017 HOT, FRESH!, Pennsylvania State University School of Visual Arts, State College, PA
- 2017 Printwork 2017, Artists Image Resource Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
- 2017 Punk House, curated by Cary Loren, Mike Kelley Mobile Homestead, MoCAD, Detroit, MI
- 2017 Text/Image, curated by Jack O. Summers, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI
- 2017 To the End of the Earth, curated by Adrian Hatfield, Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, MI
- 2017 Yellow Bridge, curated by Marine Penhouët and Arnaud Rochard, Le Kabinet, Brussels, Belgium
- 2016 EDITION 2016, Simone DeSousa Gallery, Detroit, MI
- 2016 The Printer's Devil, curated by Stephen William Schudlich, The Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
- 2016 à l’arrache 5, curated by Marc Brunier-Mestas, Association Les Abattoirs, Riom, France
- 2016 Turnover A Spread, curated by Andrea Eckert, Holding House, Detroit, MI
- 2015 Signs of the Times, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND
- 2014 Substrate: Printed Matter From the Rust Belt, curated by Ben Gaydos, Scene Metrospace, Lansing, MI
- 2014 I’m Your Man, curated by Lauren Kalman and Millee Tibbs, ISE Cultural Foundation, New York, NY
- 2014 Publisher! Publisher!, curated by Amze Emmons, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL
- 2013 Line By Line: Drawing Explored, curated by Jack O. Summers, Detroit Artists Market Detroit, MI
- 2013 Graphic Design Exhibition, curated by Danielle Aubert, The Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
- 2013 CIRCUS, curated by Joe Levickas and Erin Garber-Pearson, Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI
- 2013 The Bitters, curated by Stephen William Schudlich, Whitdel Arts, Detroit, MI
- 2012 Vision In A Cornfield, curated by Cary Loren and Rebecca Mazzei, MoCAD, Detroit, MI
- 2012 United Dead Artists, curated by Stéphane Blanquet, La Galerie Lavignes-Bastille, Paris, France
- 2012 A Shadow Side, curated by Josh Anderson, Peru State College Art Gallery, Peru, NE
- 2012 Eat Before We Eat You, curated by Paul Nudd, Morpho Gallery, Chicago, IL
- 2011 Heads on Poles, curated by Paul Nudd, Western Exhibitions, Chicago, IL
- 2010 As The Crow Flies, curated by Pete Schulte, Times Club at Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA
- 2010 What's So Funny?, curated by Gloria Pritschet and Rocco DePietro, Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI
- 2010 TOUCH, Work • Detroit, U of M Stamps School of Art & Design, Detroit, MI
- 2009 Actual Size Biennial, Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Detroit, MI
- 2009 Collection Connection, Work • Ann Arbor, U of M School of Art & Design, Ann Arbor, MI
- 2009 From a Different Perspective, curated by Gary Eleinko, Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, MI
- 2009 Bradley International Print & Drawing Exhibition, Bradley University, Peoria, IL
- 2009 Fear, Work • Detroit, U of M Stamps School of Art & Design, Detroit, MI
- 2009 Satisfaction Town, curated by Amze Emmons, Columbia College, Chicago, IL
- 2008 Andres Serrano Picks Detroit, curated by Andres Serrano, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI
- 2007 Land Grant Flag-State Construct, Bemis Underground, Omaha, NE
- 2019 Rotland's False Development Promises Sales Case, Bert Green Fine Art, Chicago, IL
- 2018 How to Chop Wood in a Glass House (reading + piano), Popps Packing, Hamtramck, MI- 2017 The Dream of the Beaver (reading), Public Pool Artspace, Hamtramck, MI
- 2017 Factory Head (reading + video screening), N'Namdi Center for Art, Detroit, MI
- 2016 Coitus Modern/Case Study (reading), Holding House, Detroit, MI
- 2014 A Radiant Cataclysm, ISE Cultural Foundation, New York, NY
- 2013 The Carbuncle Procedure, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI
- 2013 Three Happy Butchers, Popps Packing, Hamtramck, MI
- 2013 Got It Kind Of Bad (reading), Work • Detroit, U of M School of Art & Design, Detroit, MI
- 2012 A Theory of Nothing & The Sound of Everything, HatchArt Collective, Detroit, MI
- 2011 FAT BRANDO (a parable of moribundity), Detroit Artist's Market, Detroit, MI
- 2011 HULLAB (three little men in the air sing their terrible song), Public Pool Artspace, Hamtramck, MI
- 2017 Detroit Sequential No. 1, Signal-Return, Detroit, MI
- 2017 A Shameful Enlightenment, Popps Packing, Hamtramck, MI- 2015 RP5: Five Years of Rotland Press, Spudnik Press, Chicago, IL
- 2015 Chasing Posada! (A Macabre Populist In The City), Spudnik Press, Chicago, IL
- 2014 Chasing Posada! (A Printmaker In The City), Signal-Return, Detroit, MI
- 2013 DEADPAN: The Art of the Expressionless, Whitdel Gallery, Detroit, MI
- 2013 A MODEST OUTRAGE, Popps Packing, Hamtramck, MI
- 2013 B3: Blooms/Bugs/Beasts (The Natural Absurd), The Scarab Club, Detroit, MI
- 2012 Love For Sale, Work • Detroit, U of M Stamps School of Art & Design, Detroit, MI
- 2012 EYE TEETH, Paint Creek Center for the Arts, Rochester, MI
- 2011 MOROSE DELECTATION, Book Beat Gallery, Oak Park, MI
- 2010 FUNNY (not funny), Work • Detroit, U of M Stamps School of Art & Design, Detroit, MI
- “A Useful Bile: André Breton’s Humour Noir in 1960s America”, Radical Dreams: Surrealism and Revolution, ed. by Abigail Susik and Elliot H. King, Penn State University Press, 2022
- "Essay'd No. 136: Jeffrey Abt" (essay), Essay'd, February 2020- "Salon @David Klein Gallery Detroit" (review), Detroit Art Review, October 2019
- "Gyan Shrobree & Jim Shrosbree @Nx.ix Gallery" (review), Detroit Art Review, October 2019
- "Jim Shrosbree @Paul Kotula Projects" (review), Detroit Art Review, September 2019.
- "Essay'd No. 128: John Maggie" (essay), Essay'd, July 2019
- "Stacey Steers @K. Oss Contemporary Art Gallery" (review), Detroit Art Review, June 2019
- "Essay'd No. 124: Emmy Bright" (essay), Essay'd, May 2019
- "COMP/SITE @The Scarab Club" (review), Detroit Art Review, April 2019
- "Dustin Cook @Playground Detroit" (review), Detroit Art Review April 2019
- "From Camelot to Kent State: Pop Art, 1960-1975 @The Detroit Institute of Arts" (review), Detroit Art Review, March 2019
- "David Opdyke @The University of Michigan Institute for the Humanitites" (review), Detroit Art Review, February 2019
- "W.C. Bevan @Greenroom Gallery"(review), Detroit Art Review, December 2018
- "Ceremonial Handball: On Jim Chatelain", Cass Corridor: Connecting Times, ed. by Simone DeSousa, Simone DeSousa Gallery (Detroit), 2017 (catalogue essay)
- “Chopped-Up Figures in Boxes with Shapes Coming Out of Their Mouths: Comic Strip Poetics”, Mid-America Print Council Journal, Vol. 25, ed. by Jennifer Ghormley, Matt Hopson-Walker, Joseph Lupo, Fall/Winter 2016
- “Getting Malled: Back to the Third Place”, The People’s Press, edited by The Hinterlands, GoodGood (Detroit), 2016
- “Coitus Modern/Case Study: Modernist Erotic Delirium”, Infinite Mile: a journal of art + culture(s) in Detroit, ed. by Stephen Garrett Dewyer and Jennifer Junkermeier, 2016
- “The Naked Modern City”, Infinite Mile: a journal of art + culture(s) in Detroit, ed. by Stephen Garrett Dewyer and Jennifer Junkermeier, 2016
- "Localized: Being a Satirical Fiction in Multiple Episodes / 1. On The Nature of Selling A Thing," Infinite Mile: a journal of art + culture(s) in Detroit, ed. by Stephen Garrett Dewyer and Jennifer Junkermeier, 2015
- “Macabre Populism From The Chosen Land”, Mid-America Print Council Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1-2, ed. by Jennifer Ghormley, Anita Jung, Kristine Joy Mallari, 2015
- “Chicago: Comics On The Make”, The Comics Journal, June 4, 2012 (on “Comics: Philosophy & Practice,” a symposium at The University of Chicago), 2012
- 2024 Luther College Department of Art, Decorah, IA
- 2023 Kimmel Harding Neslon Center for the Arts, Nebraska City, NE
- 2021 Jentel Artist Residency, Banner, WY- 2018 Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Amherst, VA
- 2017 Print Media, Gwen Frostic School of Art, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
- 2016-2017 Print Media, Cranbrook Academy of Art and Design, Bloomfield Hills, MI
- 2016 Modern Graphics History Library, Communication Design/Printmaking Programs, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
- 2015 Guest Critic: Printmaking Area, Fine Arts, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI
- 2015 Printmaking Area, School of Art and Art History, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
PUBLICATIONS
- This Must Not Be The Place You Thought It Would Be (print monograph), Simone DeSousa Gallery (Detroit), 2020
- Punk House (print catalog), edited by Cary Loren, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (Detroit), 2017- MANUAL (print anthology), edited by Amze Emmons, R.L. Tillman, Jason Urban, Printeresting (Philadelphia), 2014
- Publisher! Publisher! (print catalog), edited by Amze Emmons (catalog), Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago), 2014
- And They Were Two In One and One In Two: Essays on Beheading and Cinema (print book), edited by Nicola Masciandaro and Eugene Thacker, Schism Press (New York), 2014
- Corpus Corpus 4 (print periodical), edited by Paul Nudd (Chicago), 2012
- La Tranchée Racine No. 1 (print periodical), edited by Stephane Blanquet, United Dead Artist (Achères, France), 2011
- Corpus Corpus 3 (print periodical), edited by Paul Nudd, Western Exhibitions (Chicago), 2011
- RUIS (print periodical), edited by Wouter Vanhaelemeesch, KRAAK (Gent, Belgium), 2010
- Bradley International 32nd Print & Drawing Exhibition (print catalog), Bradley University (Peoria, IL), 2009
- Le Temps qui passé by Tycho Brahé (music album), Les Disques Normal (Paris), 2009
- Le Tendon Revolver, état second (print periodical) edited by Stephane Blanquet, United Dead Artists, (Achères, France), 2009
- Picturesque by Emily Wilson and Poem by Mark Levine (print broadside) Spout Graphic Press (Iowa City, IA), 2006
- Liu, Jasmine. "The Curator Archiving Gun Violence Through Art." Hyperallergic, July 11, 2022.
- Bittencourt, Ela. "Surrealist Cinema's Drive Toward Freedom." FRIEZE No. 228 (print and online), June-August 2022.
- Feighan, Maureen. "Detroit artist's show uses matchbooks, dark humor to skewer capitalism, social media." The Detroit News (print and online), March 23, 2022.
- VanZandt, Danny. "Making as an Act of Connection to History and Environment: In Conversation with Ryan Standfest." Detroit Cultural (online), December 21, 2020
- Hodges, Michael. "Sharp Angles: An Italian Futurist Mural Takes Shape on Michigan Avenue" (feature), The Detroit News, August 22, 2019.-Letts, K.A. "The Medium and the Message: New Media and the Democratization of Fine Art in Detroit" (feature), New Art Examiner, November/December 2019.
- Sharp, Sarah Rose. "Leaving Cynicism Aside To Take A Fresh Look At Detroit" (review), Hyperallergic, December 6, 2018.- Mannisto, Glen. "Ryan Standfest @WSU Art Department Gallery" (review), Detroit Art Review, November 2018.
- Hodges, Michael. "Artist Ryan Standfest Takes A Dark Look At Failed Optimism", The Detroit News, November 22, 2018.
- van Laar, Timothy. "Essay'd #110: Ryan Standfest" (essay), Essay'd.org (blog), 2018
- Sharp, Sarah Rose. "Detroit Arts and Culture: Best Gallery Shows 2017" (feature), Detroit Free Press, December 31, 2017
- Snoekx, Kurt. "Le Kabinet Crosses the Atlantic Yellow Bridge" (feature), Bruzz (magazine), May 29, 2017
- Sharp, Sarah Rose. "A Printmaker's Nonsensical Designs for an Absurd World" (review), Hyperallergic, 2017
- Sharp, Sarah Rose. "Artists' Books that Break with Traditional Bindings" (feature), Hyperallergic, 2016
- DeGalan, Clara. “It’s Funny Because It’s True: The Absurd in Art”, artHOPPER.org (blog), 2012
- Viera, Lauren. "Heads on Poles at Western Exhibitions", The Chicago Tribune, 2011
- Berlatsky, Noah. "Ryan Standfest on Art Young, Faith and Black Humor", The Hooded Utilitarian (blog), 2010
- Bibliothèque Nationale de France, prints and Photographs Department, Paris, France
- Columbia University Library (New York, NY)
- The Detroit Institute of Arts, Prints, Drawings & Photographs Collection, Detroit, MI
- Ecole d’Arts Plastiques de Riom, Riom, France
- Harvard Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
- The Library of Congress, SPX Collection, Washington, D.C.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Watson Library, Special Collections, New York, NY
- Michigan State University Libraries, East Lansing, MI
- Ohio State University, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Columbus, OH
- The Schulz Library at the Center for Cartoon Studies, White River Junction, VT
- Southern Graphics Council Archives, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS
- The University of Chicago Library, Chicago
- The University of Iowa, School of Art and Art History Collection, Iowa City, IA
- The University of Mississippi, Southern Graphics Council Archives, Oxford, MS
- The University of Northern Illinois, DeKalb, IL
- University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, Madison, WI
- Washington University, Modern Graphic History Library, St. Louis, MO
- Wayne State University Special Collections, Detroit, MI
- Zuckerman Museum of Art, Prints Archive, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA
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