“Art books generally depict pieces of art, and art is generally shown in galleries. For his new artist’s book, Tod Lippy flips the script. Private displays photographs of art galleries that Lippy has taken over the past several years. Crucially, these photographs are not of the art housed in said galleries but of the areas that are marked off-limits to visitors. These areas are indeed private, and the book’s title ripples throughout the 66-page volume to incantatory effect. Without trespassing, Lippy gestures toward the banal, if not insidious, forces behind the artworks on display: commerce and bureaucracy. His cropped photographs strip the galleries of identifying information, coalescing into an expanse of gatekeeping white space.”—Artbook

“Original in concept and accomplished in design and execution, Private takes a seemingly finite set of possibilities and makes them look limitless.”—Hans Hickerson, PhotoBook Journal

Private features a selection of the photographs I’ve taken in the space of five years or so of the areas in commercial art galleries that are off-limits to visitors. The book launched at a related event and exhibition at The Future Perfect’s Goldwyn House in Los Angeles on March 1, 2024.