Pippa Garner: The Witty Visionary of Conceptual Art Passes Away at 82

Pippa Garner, an avant-garde art innovator known for her dramatically altered consumer products — such as a midriff-revealing men’s “Half Suit” and a ’59 Chevy with its chassis inverted — provided clever critiques on gender, body alteration, American automobile culture, and the definitions of fine art. She passed away on Dec. 30 in Los Angeles at the age of 82.

Her passing, which occurred in a rehabilitation facility, was authenticated by Christopher Schwartz of Stars Gallery in Los Angeles, her representative. She faced several health challenges, particularly chronic lymphocytic leukemia, he stated.

While Ms. Garner’s artwork, including her illustrations, sculptures, and inventions, often had a humorous edge, they emerged not from a political motive but rather from her genuine inquisitiveness about herself and her surroundings, ranging from her childhood in a car-obsessed America to her gender transition journey, which began in the 1980s. Consequently, her creations were typically highly amusing.

Prior to 2015, when she embarked on a remarkable series of exhibitions coinciding with the release of two monographs — “Act Like You Know Me” and “Pippa Garner: $ell Your $elf” — Ms. Garner was primarily recognized for “Philip Garner’s Better Living Catalog,” a collection of her imaginative, ostentatiously unnecessary devices and accessories. This was released in 1982, under her birth name, prior to her transition.

The book highlighted, among other creations, lowrider roller skates, a birdbath jacuzzi, a palm-frond umbrella, and a contraption for tossing garbage out your kitchen window.

The publication gained significant attention, and shortly thereafter, Ms. Garner guest-starred on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” to promote it, notably wearing the “Half-Suit.”

Ms. Garner briefly studied industrial design and served as a combat artist in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War before establishing herself as a prolific photographer and illustrator.

For many years, she earned a living by providing whimsical and detailed illustrations of inventions, such as those featured in the “Better Living Catalog,” for various magazines, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Playboy. She often noted that her work in these publications reached hundreds of thousands of readers, unlike the few hundred who might frequent an art gallery.

“I think it’s entirely feasible to be an extremely inventive artist in any medium of your choosing, even if it’s a commercial medium,” she expressed in a 2019 interview.

Simultaneously, she embarked on ambitious, frequently automobile-centric art projects, many of which were lost or wrecked. One — a sculpture depicting a car with human-like features lifting its leg over a map of Detroit — resulted in her expulsion from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.

At times, her editorial connections intersected with her more avant-garde endeavors. In 1974, Esquire magazine provided funding and subsequently published an article about a project she referred to as “Backwards Car,” in which she removed, inverted, and reattached the chassis of a 1959 Chevrolet sedan to create the illusion that she was driving in reverse when taken over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Other notable automotive creations included a “nauti-mobile,” featuring a yacht-style cockpit; and “The World’s Most Fuel-Efficient Car,” a 1972 Honda powered by recumbent bicycles. (For her daily transportation, Ms. Garner preferred human-powered vehicles and held a patent for a certain kind of push scooter.)

In more recent years, through a series entitled “Shirtstorm,” she focused on T-shirts, printing unique slogans on them or applying them with an iron; among these were “Iraqi Horror Picture Show,” “I’d rather Butter myself than Better myself,” “Nothing Exists That Wasn’t There in The First Place,” and “These Are My Remains.”

Ms. Garner commenced her gender transition in 1986 after physicians declined to prescribe hormones without a therapist’s approval, prompting her to source doses of estrogen through illicit means. In 1988, she sold a print by artist Ed Ruscha, a friend, to finance breast augmentation. Later, she had a bra and panties permanently inked onto her skin.

She candidly discussed her transition journey, albeit not always in a consistent manner, reflecting on her discomfort with every element of her birth identity, including her whiteness and middle-class status. Most frequently, she characterized this transformation as an additional creative experiment.

“With a sex change,” she remarked, “you’re crafting a visual statement.”

According to her, this characterization of her transition eventually distanced her from some artists and transgender individuals, at least initially. However, it also foreshadowed contemporary discussions surrounding the nature of art and our understanding of gender — encapsulating her overarching perspective on life.

“Her body, her life — it’s all resource material,” Mr. Schwartz noted in an interview. “She experienced it. It’s authentic.”

Or as Ms. Garner articulated during an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 2023: “I pondered, with all this effort I was investing into modifying consumer products off the assembly line, couldn’t that methodology be applied to the human body? If I can…work with a waffle maker, why not the physique? I already possess one, and it’s up to me to choose what I wish to do with it.”

Ms. Garner, who adopted the middle name Venus, was born in Evanston, Illinois, on May 22, 1942, to Richard and Mary (Hubbard) Garner. Her father worked as an advertising executive for McCall’s magazine. Her mother obtained a master’s degree in English after managing the household for a period.

Ms. Garner had a younger sibling from whom she appeared to be distanced. Her marriage to the artist Nancy Reese, who introduced Ms. Garner to the artistic community in the late 1970s, concluded in divorce. No details regarding survivors were disclosed.

Ms. Garner’s family relocated across the Midwest during her childhood, and although she engaged in drawing and experimentation constantly, she faced challenges in her education. Ultimately, she attended multiple art institutions before being conscripted into the Army in 1965. As an adult, she resided in Los Angeles, London, the Bay Area, Santa Fe, N.M., and Long Beach, California; mingled with creators like Mr. Ruscha and Chris Burden; and collaborated with the Bay Area avant-garde group Ant Farm.

Her work began to gain broader recognition in 2015, when it was showcased at the Spring/Break Art Show at Moynihan Station in New York. Solo displays at Redling Gallery in Los Angeles followed in 2017 and 2018. Her inaugural institutional solo exhibition in Europe, “Act Like You Know Me,” debuted at the Kunstverein Munich in 2022 before proceeding to Zurich; Metz, France; and New York. Her first American museum solo exhibit, “Pippa Garner: $ell Your $elf,” commenced at Art Omi, located in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, in 2023.

Ms. Garner also engaged in the Hammer Museum’s biennial in Los Angeles in 2023 and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s biennial in New York in 2024. A current exhibition, “Misc. Pippa,” her second solo feature at Stars Gallery, launched in November.

She was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia around 2010. The ailment was associated with exposure to Agent Orange, a herbicide employed by the American military in Vietnam. Throughout the past decade, she also succumbed to blindness due to glaucoma.

Interviews, similar to everything, offered creative chances for Ms. Garner, but her remarks would have been much less impactful without their ring of authenticity. Inquired last year what guidance she would offer to an emerging artist who admired her, she responded, “I attempted to set an example that nobody else can replicate.”