Christina Ramberg, Tight Hipped, 1974, Copyright the Estate of Christina Ramberg, Courtesy Collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, The Bill McClain Collection of Chicago Imagism.
The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue
Alexandra Bircken, Rachal Bradley, Sara Deraedt, Gaylen Gerber, Konrad Klapheck, Ghislaine Leung, Hans-Christian Lotz, Senga Nengudi, Ana Pellicer, Christina Ramberg, Richard Rezac, Diane Simpson, Terre Thaemlitz, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Kathleen White
“Containing, restraining, reforming, hurting, compressing, binding, transforming a lumpy shape into a clean smooth line,” is how American artist Christina Ramberg (1946–1995) once described the drawings of corsets in her sketchbooks. Ramberg was one of the most intriguing painters to emerge within a generation of Chicago Imagists. She left a significant body of comic, formally elegant, erotically sinister paintings. Operating under the influences of Surrealism, her cropped torsi, sharply delineated and bound in bizarre variations of corsets, bandages, and textures exude an unnerving calm burdened with a conflicted desire. Ramberg’s understanding of the body as an environment that is closely intertwined with its surrounding, shaped by corsets, hairdos as well as behavioral conventions is central to the exhibition at KW Institute for Contemporary Art that summons an analysis of conduct based on her approach as something constructed by the structures that externally and internally determine our existence. A selection of paintings and drawings by Christina Ramberg will form the core of the exhibition, alongside of which other artistic positions such as Alexandra Bircken, Rachal Bradley, Sara Deraedt, Gaylen Gerber, Konrad Klapheck, Ghislaine Leung, Hans Christian Lotz, Senga Nengudi, Ana Pellicer, Richard Rezac, Diane Simpson, Terre Thaemlitz, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, and Kathleen White will expand the conversation and extend the understanding of the type of framing devices that can be identified as having an impact on and condition performance, behavior, and physical expression.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a substantial publication that brings together newly commissioned writing on Ramberg by art historians and theorists, among others, Anna Gritz, Dr. Larne Abse Gogarty and Judith Russi Kirshner alongside experimental fiction texts by Jen George, and Dodie Bellamy. A large section of the publication will be dedicated to a facsimile reprint of Ramberg’s unique collection of photographic slides.
Curator: Anna Gritz
Assistant Curators: Kathrin Bentele, Léon Kruijswijk
The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue won the AICA Germany award in the category The Special Exhibition 2019.
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Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
v.l.n.r.: Christina Ramberg, Black Widow, 1971, Courtesy Illinois State Museum, lllinois Legacy Collection; Konrad Klapheck, Der Mann in der Frau (L’homme dans la femme), 1986, Courtesy Privatsammlung. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling. -
Ghislaine Leung, SHROOMS, 2016, Courtesy die Künstlerin und ESSEX STREET, New York. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Christina Ramberg, Probed Cinch, 1971, Courtesy Privatsammlung, New York. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Senga Nengudi, A.C.Q. I, 2016–17, Courtesy die Künstlerin, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, London, Los Angeles; Lévy Gorvy, New York, London, Hong Kong und Thomas Erben Gallery, New York. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
v.l.nr.: Ghislaine Leung, SHROOMS, 2016, Courtesy die Künstlerin und ESSEX STREET, New York. Ana Pellicer, Anillo liliputense, producto de exportación, 1981, Courtesy die Künstlerin, Ringier AG / Sammlung Ringier (CH) und Gaga Fine Arts, Mexiko-Stadt und Los Angeles. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Vordergrund: Ghislaine Leung, SHROOMS, 2016, Courtesy die Künstlerin und ESSEX STREET, New York. An der Wand: Hans-Christian Lotz, Untitled, 2015, Courtesy der Künstler und Lars Friedrich, Berlin. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Vordergrund: Alexandra Bircken, INXS, 2016, Courtesy Sammlung Danniel Rangel. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, ... And yet we are becoming, 2019, Courtesy die Künstlerin und Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
v.l.nr.: Sara Deraedt, Nilco, 2009, Courtesy die Künstlerin und ESSEX STREET, New York. Kathleen White, The Spark Between L and D, 1988, Courtesy Nachlass Kathleen White und Martos Gallery, New York. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
v.l.nr.: Richard Rezac, Untitled (12-08), 2012. Richard Rezac, Tendril (Thomaskirche), 2016, Alle Arbeiten Courtesy der Künstler und Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin. Ghislaine Leung, GATES, 2019, Courtesy die Künstlerin und ESSEX STREET, New York. Richard Rezac, Nemaha (Pair), 2016, Courtesy der Künstler und Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Terre Thaemlitz, Soulnessless, 2012, Courtesy Comatonse Recordings. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
v.l.nr.: Christina Ramberg, Black Widow, 1971, Courtesy Illinois State Museum, lllinois Legacy Collection. Richard Rezac, Lancaster, 2004, Courtesy der Künstler und Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin. Gaylen Gerber, Backdrop/The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue, n.d., 2019, Courtesy der Künstler und Galerie Emanuel Layr, Wien / Rom. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
v.l.nr.: Ghislaine Leung, GATES, 2019. Ghislaine Leung, SHROOMS, 2016. Beide Arbeiten Courtesy die Künstlerin und ESSEX STREET, New York. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling -
Christina Ramberg, Black Widow, 1971, Courtesy Illinois State Museum, lllinois Legacy Collection. Installationsansicht The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2019, Foto: Frank Sperling
The exhibition is produced by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin in collaboration with 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine, Metz (FR) and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (GB), where it will be presented in 2020.
The opening takes place in conjunction with the Berlin Art Week 2019.
The exhibition The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue is made possible through support from the Capital Cultural Fund and Terra Foundation for American Art.