Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic

"Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic" (1987) 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 was composed of 50 pounds of raw flank steaks sewn together, and hung on a hanger. According to the artist, the work is a contrast between vanity and bodily decomposition. The artwork is in the collections of Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and of Centre Pompidou in Paris (edition of 2 + artist copy).

The artwork consists of a "Flesh Dress", constructed of slabs of 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 dress is stitch together from 50-60 pounds of raw flank steak and must be constructed anew each time it is shown. The work included either $260 or $300 worth of meat, as of its 1991 showing.

As suggested by the title, the work is 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".

There were some earlier instances of meat being used as clothing in art. Seafood outfits, including a lobster bikini, were featured at Salvador Dalí's The Dream of Venus pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair. The cover of the November 1983 The Undertones compilation album, All Wrapped Up showed a female model wearing cuts of meat held in place with plastic wrap. The clothes are mostly bacon, with a sausage necklace. In 2010, singer Lady Gaga attended an awards show wearing a meat dress similar to Sterbak's in style.

Montreal gallery Galerie Rene Blouin exhibited the "Flesh Dress" in 1987. The exhibit received "scant" attention.

At age 36, Sterbak was given a retrospective show at the National Gallery of Canada called "States of Being", reviewing the past decade of her works. Scheduled from 8 March to 21 May 1991, the exhibit included works like "Cone on Hand" (1979). The exhibit was relatively well-attended, compared to other shows, due in part to the controversy, and was discussed in the catalog Jana Sterbak: States of Being = corps à corps.

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