Pippa Garner, anticonformist artist, dies at 82

Pippa Garner, born Philip in Evanston, 1942, died on December 30, 2024, in Los Angeles at age 82. She critiqued consumerism and gender through her work, body, and irony. In the 1980s she underwent gender transition, considering it an artistic project to create disorientation about her social position. Garner was a protagonist in Luca Lo Pinto's last exhibition at MACRO in Rome, 'Post Scriptum. Un museo dimenticato a memoria.' Lo Pinto recalls her as the most irregular of irregulars, born under the shadow of war, with a father who was an advertiser and a desperate housewife mother. She produced deeply ironic and intensely political ideas, treating her body as a consumer object, alterable like a machine or appliance. Garner combined illustration, industrial design, visual art, fashion, and magazines, always pushing boundaries. Although rejected by art schools, new generations are now fascinated by her, giving her unprecedented recognition. Lo Pinto dedicated significant space to her in his MACRO show to honor her in her final phase. He states her freedom is what the art world most lacks today.