“...I think that the lifecycle for me is the idea-cycle. You can look at it a lot of different ways, and the way I think of my own career is that an idea will start a little spark somewhere that pesters me for a while. And then it starts to sprout a limb and turn into something. Then it gains momentum, it starts to involve me more…I start to add things that are arbitrary, that are from the culture and so forth, and from my own history, until it actually turns into a mature product. And then it wears out. It goes through its lifecycle and starts to become shaky. It dissolves into nothing. And then, hopefully, if you’re sharp enough another idea is waiting in the wings.”

—Pippa Venus Garner (1942–2024), November 2024

Secret Asian Man presents Knock, knock! (Posthumorous) by Pippa Venus Garner, the first solo exhibition of the artist posthumously organized by the artist’s estate.

“Posthumorous” is a term Garner used to describe that which would survive her: her T&A (tits & ass implants), collaged shirts and g-strings, drawings, texts, bills, letters. Knock, knock! (Posthumorous) pays tribute to the abundance of her archive and to Garner’s legacies of humor, drive, and desire. Garner often spoke about erotics and sensuality as essential to her productive process—she sometimes described ideas as as undergoing a life cycle from gestation to birth. She got “knocked up” with ideas, countless as the cars in Los Angeles. A selection of Garner’s props and propositions are exhibited here, from a cocky doorknocker to “Pay per View” panties, a Sex-Organ, a Sex Change Booth, and Garner’s very own Newton’s Law: If you knock me up, I’ll knock you down.

Pippa Garner (b. 1942, Evanston; d. 2024, Long Beach) produced a vast body of work over five decades that represents a study of—and intervention into—the waxing and waning cycles of commodity fetishism, and the marvels and drudgery of everyday life refracted through the glint of American capitalism. Her work takes the form of classified ads, garments, custom cars, drawings, body modification, advertising, photography, furniture, sculptures, publications, and performances on the streets or on television. Selected solo exhibitions have been held at Art Omi, Ghent (2023); White Columns, New York (2023); Frac Lorraine, Metz (2023); Kunsthalle Zurich (2023); Kunstverein Munich (2022); Verge Center for the Arts, Sacramento (2022); and JOAN, Los Angeles (2021). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2024); Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2024); Whitney Museum of Art, New York (2024); 8th Yokohama Triennale (2024); and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2023). A forthcoming exhibition of Garner’s furniture designs will open at Superhouse, New York in November 2026.

Garner’s work is in the collections of Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Kunsthaus Zurich; and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.

The Estate of Pippa Garner is co-run by Christopher Schwartz, Sara O’Keeffe, and Fiona Alison Duncan.