Pippa Garner
A Brief Survey
October 19 - November 30, 2018
*A special thank you to Redling Fine Art for their contributions
The Newsstand Project is announcing the opening of a second location, generously provided by Creative Art Partners and The House on Sunset, with a presentation of work by Los Angeles-based artist Pippa Garner (b. 1942). Previously operating under the name Philip Garner, the artist has spent an entire career utilizing popular media, in addition to traditional gallery and museum spaces, to disseminate satirical and irreverent drawings, sculptures, performances, and videos. This presentation will focus on a set of illustrations the artist created in preparation for editorial works printed in various publications throughout the 1990s, i.e. Sunset Magazine and Car and Driver Magazine, in addition to more recent sculptural and clothing-based work.
In the 1960’s, the artist, then going by “Phil,” attended the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, where she gained technical foundations in sculpting and illustration, specifically as they related to automotive design.
Of particular note are Garner’s trio of catalogs: Philip Garner’s Better Living Catalog (1982), Utopia...or Bust! Products for the Perfect World (1984), and Garner’s Gizmos & Gadgets (1987). They feature satirical photographs, sculptures, and hand-drawn illustrations of modified, mass-produced products and technologies which, while difficult to classify, poke fun at American consumer culture and specifically its formulation in the years leading up to and during the Vietnam War, when suburbia promised utopia.
The thirteen drawings included in the exhibition build upon this precedent by assuming the form of absurdist editorial advertisements. Conceived by a self-described “mad tinkerer,” they represent nonsensical gadgets designed to solve an irrational set of oftentimes quotidian problems related to daily, suburban living. Through a specificity of drawing and an immaculately rendered, cartoon-like typology, Garner’s work inevitably highlights the dual absurdity of the unsubstantiated promises embedded within technological marketing as well as the consumer’s unrealistic expectations from it.
Fast forward, and Garner spent the past several years collaging unique T-shirts out of other found, printed tees. They feature perverse language and punny, colorful images that preserve, distill, and sharpen the immediate and satirical appeal of her illustrations.
“Pippa Garner has satire down pat. That’s no mean feat, given the slipperiness of the literary genre... [she] has an ear for life’s mundane madness, which she turns against itself to throw things into high relief. More Horace than Juvenal, her insightful humor is arch rather than piercing.”
- Christopher Knight, The Los Angeles Times
Pippa Garner: A Brief Survey will run from October 19 - November 30, 2018 at 9169 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA. 90069, and will be open by appointment only. An opening reception will be held on Friday, October 19th from 6-9pm.
The Newsstand Project would also like to give special thanks to Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles for their kind support. TNP
In the 1960’s, the artist, then going by “Phil,” attended the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, where she gained technical foundations in sculpting and illustration, specifically as they related to automotive design.
Of particular note are Garner’s trio of catalogs: Philip Garner’s Better Living Catalog (1982), Utopia...or Bust! Products for the Perfect World (1984), and Garner’s Gizmos & Gadgets (1987). They feature satirical photographs, sculptures, and hand-drawn illustrations of modified, mass-produced products and technologies which, while difficult to classify, poke fun at American consumer culture and specifically its formulation in the years leading up to and during the Vietnam War, when suburbia promised utopia.
The thirteen drawings included in the exhibition build upon this precedent by assuming the form of absurdist editorial advertisements. Conceived by a self-described “mad tinkerer,” they represent nonsensical gadgets designed to solve an irrational set of oftentimes quotidian problems related to daily, suburban living. Through a specificity of drawing and an immaculately rendered, cartoon-like typology, Garner’s work inevitably highlights the dual absurdity of the unsubstantiated promises embedded within technological marketing as well as the consumer’s unrealistic expectations from it.
Fast forward, and Garner spent the past several years collaging unique T-shirts out of other found, printed tees. They feature perverse language and punny, colorful images that preserve, distill, and sharpen the immediate and satirical appeal of her illustrations.
“Pippa Garner has satire down pat. That’s no mean feat, given the slipperiness of the literary genre... [she] has an ear for life’s mundane madness, which she turns against itself to throw things into high relief. More Horace than Juvenal, her insightful humor is arch rather than piercing.”
- Christopher Knight, The Los Angeles Times
Pippa Garner: A Brief Survey will run from October 19 - November 30, 2018 at 9169 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA. 90069, and will be open by appointment only. An opening reception will be held on Friday, October 19th from 6-9pm.
The Newsstand Project would also like to give special thanks to Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles for their kind support. TNP