About a decade before Lady Gaga donned a meat dress at the 2010 Video Music Awards, a similar fleshy ensemble was attracting controversy at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
Jana Sterbak’s Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic featured 50 pounds of raw flank steaks stitched together. A city councillor called it a “decadent and perverse waste of taxpayers’ money.”