Pippa Garner — Personal Ads

A book on Pippa Garner's dealings with fashion and the media, built from photographs and editorial projects of the 1970s to the 1990s, among them pictures not seen before.

Garner was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1942 and studied automotive design for a year at ArtCenter in Los Angeles. She became known for absurdist product inventions and for books such as Philip Garner's Better Living Catalog (1982). She began transitioning in the 1980s and treated it as part of her art, calling it gender hacking. She died in Los Angeles on 30 December 2024.

The book looks at how she turned commercial work into art objects, and at the occasions when fashion borrowed the forms and ideas of her work. Luca Lo Pinto, former director of the MACRO museum in Rome, contributes an interview, the fashion collective BLESS adds an artistic project, and BilderAtlas's creative director, Giorgia Basch, writes the introduction. Basch and Jurgen Maelfeyt edited the book, and Maelfeyt designed it. It was shortlisted for PhotoBook of the Year at the 2025 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards.

Art Paper Editions, 2025. 112 pages, paperback with dust jacket, 24 x 30 cm. Edition of 1,500.