False Image Postcards 1968

Christina Ramberg made this small artwork with ink on a postcard. I love the way the heavy blue-black ink defines and conceals simultaneously! I imagine Ramberg, in her studio, surrounded by images from magazines, fashion photography, and advertising. She finds an image, maybe a woman hiding her face, and reduces it to its most iconic elements. In this case, the sweeping hair and the gesture of covering up. It becomes a kind of anti-portrait, about what is hidden, or missing. That blank head in the second panel is unsettling. It’s like a void where identity should be. It’s hard not to think of other artists who use seriality and repetition to create meaning, like Warhol or maybe even Gerhard Richter. I feel a sense of kinship with Ramberg. We’re all just trying to figure things out, one gesture at a time!