Ruth Scheuing: Anatomy of the Suit/Geometry of the Body

Ruth Scheuing’s 1993 installation Anatomy of the Suit/Geometry of the Body challenges understandings of power structures and male-female relationships evident in the clothes we wear, and comments on how we perceive and structure our world. Scheuing’s deconstructed and reassembled garments are presented in three separate but related bodies of work: Alterations/Transformations is a series of physically deconstructed business suits rearranged in decorative configurations that humorously deny the symbol of male power represented by the suit; Busts is part of a series of larger-than-life-size women’s dresses in sheet metal, cut after patterns from the 19th century and held together with screws and bolts, or “pop-rivets” – materials with typically masculine associations, and; Metamorphoses tells important stories of women who gave voice to their work as weavers and spinners, including Arachne, Philomela and the three daughters of Minyas.

Image courtesy of the Textile Museum of Canada, Ontario, Canada.