Christina's World

Christina Ramberg, Probed Cinch, 1971. Private collection, New York

Christina Ramberg (1946-1995) was a Chicago Imagist, not so well known as some, with a truly amazing career. Her early work draws on Pop, with the female body as a consumer commodity. From there she moved into pictures of robotic and disintegrating bodies, then pure abstraction—and quilts. This trajectory is the subject of "Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective," organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and now on view at UCLA's Hammer Museum through Jan. 5, 2025.

Christina Ramberg, Untitled (Hand), 1971. Private collection, New York

Christina Ramberg, untitled, 1972. Private collection, Taos, New Mexico

The faces of Ramberg's figures are almost never shown (as in, "My eyes are up here!") The fetishistic subtext of Ramberg's art was apparent to Hugh Hefner's Chicago-based Playboy magazine. Relatively open to the Chicago avant garde, Playboy commissioned a 1972 painting from Ramberg to illustrate ribald poetry. It's a Pop grid of lady parts.

Christina Ramberg, Wired, 1974-75. Museum of Modern Art, New York

Ramberg's art grew more abstract, more outré. Wired is a trans transformer, imagining gender as a samurai armor game of fright camouflage. A few years later, Ramberg's figures lose bilateral symmetry and fall to pieces.

Christina Ramberg, Schizophrenic Discovery, 1977. David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana

Christina Ramberg, 10 Watt End Table Lamp, 1977. Collection of Michael J. Robertson and Christopher A. Slapak, promised gift to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields

Ramberg was also doing still lifes of fancy chair backs and lamps. In 10 Watt End Table Lamp Ramberg literally makes light of her characteristically murky palette.

Christina Ramberg, Charlie Kreiner, 1985. Estate of Christina Ramberg

The abstract phase of Ramberg's practice culminates in two brilliant late series. One is a set of quilts inspired by African-American examples. The colors sizzle, and the textile patterns resemble those in Ramberg's paintings.

Christina Ramberg, Untitled #121, 1986. Estate of Christina Ramberg

Ramberg's late style also encompasses the "satellite paintings," brushy monochrome abstractions that share affinities with such different artists as Emil Bisttram and Terry Winters. Or are the vertical cones MRIs of wasp-waisted dominatrices?

Christina Ramberg, Untitled #127, 1986. Estate of Christina Ramberg

The Hammer presentation opens with a 1977 quote from the artist: "I want my paintings to affect other people's consciousness and… when I DO show them, they'll KNOCK 'EM DEAD."

Christina Ramberg, Untitled (Hair), 1968. Collection of Joel Wachs. Photo: Kris Graves