Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic
Encyclopedia
"Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic" is an artwork created by Canadian Jana Sterbak
, first displayed at Montreal's Galerie Rene Blouin. Its most famous showing was at the National Gallery of Canada
in Ottawa, where it attracted national controversy. The work included 50 pounds of raw flank steaks stitched together, and hung on a hanger. It was to "emphasize the contrast between vanity and bodily decay."
As suggested by the title, the work is easily considered within the genre of "vanitas
", a category of art showing death and decay. The work includes non-traditional materials, a trend in 20th century art. It "stands in the Surrealist tradition of the uncanny, of the informe, disturbing the distinctions, by which we categorize experience".
When the meat was shriveling, flaking, and falling off, one anonymous donor gave the gallery $260 for replacement meat. (This number was of some debate, with $350 worth of meat listed in one vegetarian magazine.) Due to the nature decay of the work, gallery staff pretended to be caterers, when finding a butcher in the Ottawa-area to provide replacement meat.
in the 1980s and 1990s, including the acquisition of Barnett Newman
's "Voice of Fire
" (1967), less than a year before. The show drew criticism from Members of Parliament, and the organizers of food banks and soup kitchens. It was considered an insult, given the early 1990s recession.
Progressive Conservative MP Felix Holtmann, a pig farmer from Manitoba commented: "I call it a jerky dress. There are a lot of people who hold food sacred in this land, and they are appalled by the use of food for this thing." In response, one newspaper editorial called him a "meat head". Holtmann was chair of the House of Commons Communications and Culture Committee, which oversees the NGC funding; the committee itself was split on the issue. The artist called Holtmann a "self-proclaimed Philistine [who is] not even successful as a hog farmer." Art critic Christopher Hume commented that the Committee's concept "was based on the notion that the National Gallery is somehow accountable for poverty and hunger in Canada. Surely the irony of their desperate position is that they are members of the group that created the mess the country is now in."
Ottawa alderman Mark Maloney called health inspectors, who found that there the work presented no health hazards. Inspected on 1 April, Dr. Edward Ellis of the Ottawa-Carlton Health Department issued a statement that the dress presented "no health hazard to the public at this time", so long as no one touches or eats it. The inspector also suggested the dress was out of their jurisdiction, being on a federal property; the department asked Health and Welfare Canada
to follow up.
The Toronto Sun and sister paper Ottawa Sun
printed a cartoon featuring "a curvy, spaghetti-strapped slip" made of the same materials as the meat dress. The editorial cartoon suggested readers cut out the image, smear it with foodstuffs, and mail it to Nemiroff; her address was included with the image. A writer for Canadian Art noted how the cartoonist suggested respondents use the most repulsive material possible, as "Diana will like that," was an emphasis of the curator's gender, with subtly sexual suggestions. The mailroom opened mail with gloves for weeks after the cartoon; one was covered in feces. A sexually-threatening letter was sent to the NGC communications officer, who had been quoted in articles about the work. The writer for Canadian Art suggested reaction would have been different if the genders of the artist and curator were different, that the work would have likely been deemed sexist, for starters. In all, 200 people mailed food scraps to the National Gallery of Canada within a week.
Contemporary Canadian art curator Diana Nemiroff suggested the controversy was largely to the work being taken out of the larger context of the show. "There's no doubt that the dress is a provocative object and it's meant to be a provocative object, but the cry that it's a waste of food is misplaced." She noted that other exhibits have used grains, breads, and potatoes were used as part of previous exhibits, but the flesh was likely source of the controversy. Said Nemiroff: "It's kind of double cross because clothing is supposed to be second skin and cover us up. And this one reverses the process and reveals what we don't want to confront: our mortality."
The film The Silence of the Lambs, about a man who butchers women, was released around the same time, a coincidence noted by a writer for Canadian Art magazine.
In various critical reviews, the work of German Joseph Beuys
was referenced; a 1996 work by Sterbak portrayed her as a moth, eating up the clothes in his closet. New York Times writer Ann Wilson Lloyd noted in 1998 that Sterbak's work "has inspired reams of humorless, abstruse theoretical writing that leaves none of her layered metaphors unturned. Yet Ms. Sterbak's work – seductive, intensely physical and edged with dark absurdity – delivers a mind-body frisson unknowable by intellect alone."
, in Minnesota. It was reconstructed by a small team in 2011, for the show "Midnight Party".
The work later was exhibited at the Tate Modern
in London, for the exhibition "Rites of Passage". When the small retrospective of her work was taken to Antoni Tapies Foundation in Barcelona, the show was "edited down to an arid minimum" by the artist herself, which included editing out the dress. In 2011, the work was presented at "Tous Cannibales" at la Maison Rouge, a gallery in Centre Pompidou, Paris.
's The Dream of Venus pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, such as a lobster bikini. The cover of the November 1983 The Undertones
album, All Wrapped Up showed a female model wearing cuts of meat (mostly bacon) held in place with plastic wrap
, and a sausage necklace.
In 2010, singer Lady Gaga
attended an awards show wearing a meat dress
, similar in style.
Jana Sterbak
Jana Sterbak is a Canadian artist best known for her works constructed from meat. Two sculptures, Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic and Chair Apollinaire , were both works whose primary medium was cured flank steak also known as skirt steak in the UK butcher trade.Born in Prague,...
, first displayed at Montreal's Galerie Rene Blouin. Its most famous showing was at the National Gallery of Canada
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
in Ottawa, where it attracted national controversy. The work included 50 pounds of raw flank steaks stitched together, and hung on a hanger. It was to "emphasize the contrast between vanity and bodily decay."
The work
The artwork consists of a "Flesh Dress", constructed of slabs of prime beef sewn together, hung on a tailor's dummy. On a nearby wall, is a framed photograph of a model posing in the dress. The work included either $260 or $300 worth of meat, as of its 1991 showing.As suggested by the title, the work is easily considered within the genre of "vanitas
Vanitas
In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with Northern European still life painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The word is Latin, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated...
", a category of art showing death and decay. The work includes non-traditional materials, a trend in 20th century art. It "stands in the Surrealist tradition of the uncanny, of the informe, disturbing the distinctions, by which we categorize experience".
Exhibit at Galerie Rene Blouin
Montreal gallery Galerie Rene Blouin exhibited the "Flesh Dress" in 1987. The exhibit received "scant" attention.Exhibit "States of Being"
The work was part of "States of Being", a show highlighting works from the past decade of Sterbak's art, she was 36. The show was scheduled from 8 March to 21 May 1991, and included works like "Cone on Hand" (1979). The exhibit was comparably well-attended, compared to other shows, thanks to the controversy. Its catalog was called Jana Sterbak : states of being = corps à corps.When the meat was shriveling, flaking, and falling off, one anonymous donor gave the gallery $260 for replacement meat. (This number was of some debate, with $350 worth of meat listed in one vegetarian magazine.) Due to the nature decay of the work, gallery staff pretended to be caterers, when finding a butcher in the Ottawa-area to provide replacement meat.
Controversy
The work was one in a series of controversies surrounding the National Gallery of CanadaNational Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
in the 1980s and 1990s, including the acquisition of Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
's "Voice of Fire
Voice of Fire
Voice of Fire is an acrylic on canvas abstract painting made by American painter Barnett Newman in 1967.The purchase of Voice of Fire by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa for its permanent collection in 1989 at a cost of $1.8 million caused a storm of controversy. Some residents mocked the...
" (1967), less than a year before. The show drew criticism from Members of Parliament, and the organizers of food banks and soup kitchens. It was considered an insult, given the early 1990s recession.
Progressive Conservative MP Felix Holtmann, a pig farmer from Manitoba commented: "I call it a jerky dress. There are a lot of people who hold food sacred in this land, and they are appalled by the use of food for this thing." In response, one newspaper editorial called him a "meat head". Holtmann was chair of the House of Commons Communications and Culture Committee, which oversees the NGC funding; the committee itself was split on the issue. The artist called Holtmann a "self-proclaimed Philistine [who is] not even successful as a hog farmer." Art critic Christopher Hume commented that the Committee's concept "was based on the notion that the National Gallery is somehow accountable for poverty and hunger in Canada. Surely the irony of their desperate position is that they are members of the group that created the mess the country is now in."
Ottawa alderman Mark Maloney called health inspectors, who found that there the work presented no health hazards. Inspected on 1 April, Dr. Edward Ellis of the Ottawa-Carlton Health Department issued a statement that the dress presented "no health hazard to the public at this time", so long as no one touches or eats it. The inspector also suggested the dress was out of their jurisdiction, being on a federal property; the department asked Health and Welfare Canada
Health and Welfare Canada
Health and Welfare Canada is a former Canadian federal department established in 1944 and split into two separate departments, Health Canada and Human Resources and Labour Canada, in June 1993 by Prime Minister Kim Campbell...
to follow up.
The Toronto Sun and sister paper Ottawa Sun
Ottawa Sun
The Ottawa Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is published by Sun Media. It was first published in the early 1980s as the Ottawa Sunday Herald, until it was acquired by Toronto Sun Publishing Corporation in 1988....
printed a cartoon featuring "a curvy, spaghetti-strapped slip" made of the same materials as the meat dress. The editorial cartoon suggested readers cut out the image, smear it with foodstuffs, and mail it to Nemiroff; her address was included with the image. A writer for Canadian Art noted how the cartoonist suggested respondents use the most repulsive material possible, as "Diana will like that," was an emphasis of the curator's gender, with subtly sexual suggestions. The mailroom opened mail with gloves for weeks after the cartoon; one was covered in feces. A sexually-threatening letter was sent to the NGC communications officer, who had been quoted in articles about the work. The writer for Canadian Art suggested reaction would have been different if the genders of the artist and curator were different, that the work would have likely been deemed sexist, for starters. In all, 200 people mailed food scraps to the National Gallery of Canada within a week.
Contemporary Canadian art curator Diana Nemiroff suggested the controversy was largely to the work being taken out of the larger context of the show. "There's no doubt that the dress is a provocative object and it's meant to be a provocative object, but the cry that it's a waste of food is misplaced." She noted that other exhibits have used grains, breads, and potatoes were used as part of previous exhibits, but the flesh was likely source of the controversy. Said Nemiroff: "It's kind of double cross because clothing is supposed to be second skin and cover us up. And this one reverses the process and reveals what we don't want to confront: our mortality."
The film The Silence of the Lambs, about a man who butchers women, was released around the same time, a coincidence noted by a writer for Canadian Art magazine.
In various critical reviews, the work of German Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art.His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy; it culminates in his "extended definition of art" and the idea of social...
was referenced; a 1996 work by Sterbak portrayed her as a moth, eating up the clothes in his closet. New York Times writer Ann Wilson Lloyd noted in 1998 that Sterbak's work "has inspired reams of humorless, abstruse theoretical writing that leaves none of her layered metaphors unturned. Yet Ms. Sterbak's work – seductive, intensely physical and edged with dark absurdity – delivers a mind-body frisson unknowable by intellect alone."
Later exhibits
One copy of the dress still exists, as a jerky of sorts. In 1993, the T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund purchased a copy of the work for the Walker Art CenterWalker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
, in Minnesota. It was reconstructed by a small team in 2011, for the show "Midnight Party".
The work later was exhibited at the Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
in London, for the exhibition "Rites of Passage". When the small retrospective of her work was taken to Antoni Tapies Foundation in Barcelona, the show was "edited down to an arid minimum" by the artist herself, which included editing out the dress. In 2011, the work was presented at "Tous Cannibales" at la Maison Rouge, a gallery in Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Parallels
Earlier instances of meat being used as clothing in art include seafood outfits at Salvador DaliSalvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
's The Dream of Venus pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, such as a lobster bikini. The cover of the November 1983 The Undertones
The Undertones
The Undertones are a punk rock/new wave band formed in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1975.The original line-up of the Undertones released thirteen singles and four studio albums — The Undertones , Hypnotised , Positive Touch and The Sin of Pride — before disbanding in July 1983.Music guide Allmusic...
album, All Wrapped Up showed a female model wearing cuts of meat (mostly bacon) held in place with plastic wrap
Plastic wrap
Plastic wrap, cling film , cling wrap or food wrap, is a thin plastic film typically used for sealing food items in containers to keep them fresh over a longer period of time...
, and a sausage necklace.
In 2010, singer Lady Gaga
Lady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
attended an awards show wearing a meat dress
Meat dress of Lady Gaga
American pop singer Lady Gaga wore a dress made of raw beef, which was commonly referred to by the media as the meat dress, to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Designed by Franc Fernandez and styled by Nicola Formichetti, the dress was condemned by animal rights groups and named by Time as the top...
, similar in style.