Susan Leeb ~ North Carolina

Shame
By Susan Leeb
2005. Edition of 5.

6.5 x 9" with five pages tied together to hang vertically. Folded, these pages slip inside a cloth bag with a sewing pattern design just as a dress pattern would slip into its envelope. Safety pin on flap of 'slipcase' as ornament.

Each page is a cutout of an eighteenth-century woman's gown. On one side is the garment; on the reverse, a naked female torso. A poem by Goethe ensures you don’t miss the point.

God to his untaught children sent

Law, order, knowledge, art, from high,
And ev'ry heav'nly favour lent,

The world's hard lot to qualify.
They knew not how they should behave,

For all from Heav'n stark-naked came;
But Poetry their garments gave,

And then not one had cause for shame.
                                                           (1816)

$225

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