Lady Gaga, meat Jana Sterbak

Cher didn't seem to notice, but her ensemble at Sunday's Video Music Awards wasn't the only been-there-done-that fashion moment of the evening. For her wardrobe change to accept her award for Video of the Year for "Bad Romance," Lady Gaga went totally retro. The "meat dress" she wore was first done 23 years ago, in a controversial 1987 sculpture by Canadian artist Jana Sterbak.

Similar to the meat bikini that Gaga donned for a recent cover of Vogue Hommes Japan, the VMA garment of draped steak could be seen as a reflection of pop culture's cravings around exposed female flesh. At least, that was one way observers saw Sterbak's 50 pounds of raw flank steak, stitched together into a slowly rotting garment and displayed, to a sizable hue and cry, in a 1991 exhibition at Canada's National Gallery.

Sterbak's "Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorexic" is now in the collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris' modern art museum -- an appropriate locale, given that city's intersection of art and fashion. Most recently it has been on view in the exhibition "elles@centrepompidou," a changing year-long survey dedicated to women artists.

No word yet on whether or not Gaga's recycled dress will be going to an In-N-Out Burger near you.

-- Christopher Knight

Photos, from left: Lady Gaga at Sunday's VMA Awards; and Jana Sterbak's "Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorexic," 1987. Credits: Kevin Winter / Getty Images; Philippe Migeat, Centre Pompidou © Jana Sterbak  

Comments

[C-Mon]

two words: carne asada!!!

[Giovanni]

The cover of Irish punk band The Undertones' 1983 singles collection "All Wrapped Up" predates the Sterback piece by four years (and I suspect it might be a more likely source for Lady Gaga). You can find an image here: http://www.pergunnareriksson.se/cover5.htm

[william wray]

That is a colossal stretch Mr. K. Not that LG doesn't purloin everything in her music and style from Madonna and who ever, but I fail to see the meat comparison in this dress. Your breathless exposé reminds me of when I was in the comic book business, fans like to "out" a "swipe" of a comic book drawing by another artist. It made them feel smart to expose a fraud like they had discovered the shroud of Turin was just an old Sham Wow.
Ironic that you would bother with this kind of childless sniping when you have supported the approbation of outsourced imagery that the fine art world has built it's feet of clay on for the last 50 years. I noticed you have been awkwardly tying your caboose to political stories in the guise of art commentary lately, is there talk of making you a celebrity gossip reporter and you’re trying to warm up with this silly leap of logic?

[Scott]

@william ray I didn't find Christopher Knight's comments to be out of line. In fact, I was reminded of the same art piece to which he refers when I saw a bikini-version clad Lady Gaga on Vogue Hommes Japan. Gaga herself has admitted that she is prone to incorporating other artists' fashion visions into her aesthetic.
And given that the statement that one interpretation of the original art piece was about female objectification, it goes along with what Lady Gaga said in her interview on Ellen today in one interpretation for wearing the dress - "I am not a piece of meat!"
It was a light-hearted comment about the fashion at the VMAs which for some reason you turned awkwardly personal and accusatory. I don't get it.

[Christopher Knight]

Thanks, Scott. I'm not certain what "childless sniping" is, but I do know that no claim of "expose" or "fraud" appears anywhere in my post. Lots more pictures of Jana Sterbak's 1987 meat dress are at her website:
http://www.janasterbak.com/images.html

[william wray]

Scott Nameless,
Point taken--Perhaps I forced in my own oversensitive agenda about art appropriation in fine art being sleekly canonized as genius, but I noted you deftly avoided tackling the subject while chiding for the tone. Hypocrisy is underneath it all, shrouded in light- hearted sarcasm according to you in this case. The critic decides one artist is a thief, anther a spokesmen for a generation. CK likes to make those kinds of observations/ distinctions and is often brutal about it. Why can’t I strongly object in my own career ending heavy–handed way? In the end it really comes down to a non- story that should be beneath him. Not Gaga about Gaga.

[marshall]

In addition to the 1983 Undertones cover pointed out by Giovanni, there's a photo of Lisa Suckdog/Lisa Crystal Carver performing in a very minimal meat/string bikini on the back of the Shonen Knife cover album "Every Band Has a Shonen Knife Who Loves Them".

This is a motif that's been played on numerous times over the past several decades. The question shouldn't be "Is Lady Gaga original for wearing meat as clothing?" The question should be "Does she pull it off?" It's just celebrity fashion and marketing, not some crossover conceptual art.

[Donald Frazell]

What does gaga, or any meat dress have to do with art? Politics or design yes, but if thats art, then it's as dead, and about he same time, as that first piece of work. At least to the media, which went "reality" long ago.

This is the lowest common denominator, art is the highest. And you wonder why there are no Michelangelo's, what else with such low expectations? Seek, and ye shall find.

It is time to put aside childish things.

art collegia delenda est

[Sally Jones]

It's true there's nothing original about Lady Gaga... It's nice that she's taking the content to the mainstream but it would be cool if she credited the originators... Usually she's just copying Madonna, which everyone over 25 already knows so it's not such a big deal.

[omg]

lol gaga didn't make the dress nor did she design it

Franc Fernandez did...

[Kibbo]

Lady Gaga does represent a good cause to me

[sifter]

try undertones - all wrapped up - 1983 cover that was censored in the united illusions of vegetarianism

[Tuxedos]

The red meat outfit is no longer new. Jana walked down the red carpet on something similar to that several years back.

[Gemma]

MARK RYDEN

[angiegaga]

whats up hoime queen of pop

[N Pavlou]

Thank God Someone someone brought up Jana Sterbak. I was beginning to think I was the only one to notice.