Exhibition
Christina Ramberg
A Retrospective
Delicate Decline, 1972, Private collection, Chicago
When
Feb 8, 2025 – Jun 1, 2025
Where
Morgan, Korman, and Field Galleries (Galleries 150-155)
Tickets
About
This exhibition, the largest of Christina Ramberg’s work to date, will illuminate the artist’s encyclopedia of imagery exploring experiences of gender, sexuality, and normative ideals of female beauty.
Born in 1946, Ramberg has tended to be associated with the Chicago Imagists, a loose fellowship of artists in the mid-1960s who made vibrant work inspired by popular culture, from comic books to low-budget films and store-front displays. However, her exquisitely detailed, kinky aesthetic has always set her apart. Ramberg consistently worked in pursuit of a “coherent visual statement”, honing in on feminized aspects of the body and its erotic trappings: hairstyles, hands, corsets, shoes.
Sometimes, she would render these details as highly polished, fetishized forms; elsewhere, she would amalgamate them into almost abstract hybrid figures. As Ramberg indicated in a diary entry, her work exists within the fertile friction between opposing dyads: “abandon / restraint, concealment / revelation, strong / weak, chaos / order”.
Image Gallery
Probed Cinch, 1971, Private collection, New York
Loose Beauty, 1973, The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth Century Purchase Fund
Shady Lacy, 1971, Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Anne d’Harnoncourt and Joseph Rishel, 2022-72-1
Hair, 1968, Collection of Joel Wachs, New York
Curators
The organizing curators are Thea Liberty Nichols, Associate Research Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art and Mark Pascale, Janet and Craig Duchossois Curator, Prints and Drawings, at the Art Institute of Chicago.
In Philadelphia, the exhibition is curated by Eleanor Nairne, Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art and Head of Department with Camila Rondon, Departmental Coordinator for Modern and Contemporary Art.
Organizers
Christina Ramberg; A Retrospective is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago.
Supporters
In Philadelphia, Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective has been made possible by the Daniel W. Dietrich II Fund for Excellence in Contemporary Art, Robert Montgomery Scott Endowment for Exhibitions, Kathleen C. and John J. F. Sherrerd Fund for Exhibitions, and Ralph Citino and Lawrence Taylor.
All exhibitions at the PMA are underwritten by the Annual Exhibition Fund. Generous support is provided by Andrea Baldeck, M.D.; Julia and David Fleischner; Amy A. Fox and Daniel H. Wheeler; Mrs. Henry F. Harris; Robert Hayes; Mark W. Strong and Dana Strong.