CHRISTINA RAMBERG
(1946-1995)
DRAWINGS

September 9 - October 10, 2009

indentAdam Baumgold Gallery presents an exhibition by Christina Ramberg of drawings from the late 1960's to the 1980's. The exhibition will include 25 drawings, along with a few paintings and prints by an artist who was "a dynamic presence and central figure in contemporary art in Chicago and in the history of feminist art.1"

indentChristina Ramberg was one of a small group of influential women artists in the 1960's and 1970's including Eva Hesse, Ree Morton and Louise Bourgeois, to use overt female imagery and address issues such as gender and gender confusion, fetishism and bondage in their art. In all of Ramberg's provocative imagery "there is a concern about the implications of mass culture and vernacular representations of femininity and the body 2" that is always executed with great formal strength within stylistic iconographic boundaries of Chicago imagism.

indentChristina Ramberg's drawings, mostly untitled, undated, and small in scale, are obsessive, meticulously executed works that are musings about gender and the possibilities for her paintings and her art. These drawings are executed in hieroglyphic-like lists and rows, for example, a drawing of a womans hands are shown in a multitude of positions being gently or tightly bound by handkerchiefs. Also, multiple views of female hairdos, seen from behind morph into heads of lettuce while other drawings show headless, corseted bodices, in various angles and contours that seem to become vessel-like.

indentChristina Ramberg's work was included in the Who Chicago? exhibition in 1980, The Figurative Tradition of American Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1980, as well as Whitney Biennials in 1972 and 1979. Christina Ramberg A Retrospective: 1968-1988 was held at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 1988, and the traveling exhibition, Christina Ramberg Drawings, at Gallery 400/University of Illinois at Chicago College of Architecture and the Arts in 2000.

indentChristina Ramberg's work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institute, The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna, among others.

indentThe gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 - 5:30 PM.

1. Karen Indeck, Christina Ramberg Drawings, 2000
2. Karen Indeck, Christina Ramberg Drawings, 2000

Untitled (Hair), 1968
Acrylic on Masonite
6 1/8" x 6 1/8"

Untitled (Hair), 1968
Acrylic on Masonite
6 1/8" x 6 1/8"

Untiled (Sketch Sheet)
Ink and orange crayon on paper
11" x 8 1/2"

"Walking Hands"
Ink on paper
11" x 8 1/2"

"Orchid Sticker,"
Pencil, sticker
10" x 8"

Untitled (Reason for shaped canvas), c. 1974-78
Black Marker on paper
10" x 8"

Untitled (Veil Tears/Vase Bodices), c. 1974-78
Black and blue ink on paper
10" x 8"

Untitled (Puzzle women), 1974 -78
Pencil on paper
8" x 5"

"Knees,"
Ink on paper
8" x 5"

"Untitled (Undergarments)," c.1980
Ink on paper
8" x 5"

"Halter Blouse"
Crayon, pencil
7 1/2" x 5"

Untitled (Torsos)
Ink on paper
6" x 4"

Untitled (Bloomers and vests)
Graphite on graphpaper
10" x 8"

Untitled (Vests)
Graphite on graphpaper
10" x 8"

"Shoe," c.1974-78
Ink and crayon on paper
5" x 7 1/2"

Untitled (hand, busts)
Ink, crayon and graphite on paper
6" x 4"

Untitled (heads)
Ink, crayon and graphite on paper
6" x 4"

Untitled (back of heads)
Ink, crayon and graphite on paper
6" x 4"

Untitled (drooping bracelet), c. 1974-78
Red ink on paper
6" x 4"