Fashion luminary Dries Van Noten, alongside his partner Patrick Vangheluwe, is inaugurating a new artistic foundation in Venice. This initiative seeks to bridge disparate creative disciplines, promoting a holistic understanding of craftsmanship as a fundamental human endeavor. The Fondazione Dries Van Noten, situated within the historic Palazzo Pisani Moretta, will serve as a dynamic hub for artists, designers, and artisans, offering a platform for exhibitions, collaborative ventures, and educational programs. This ambitious project aims to reposition Venice not merely as a repository of history, but as a vibrant crucible for contemporary artistic dialogue and innovation.
The foundation's inaugural exhibition, titled "THE ONLY TRUE PROTEST IS BEAUTY," curated by Van Noten and Geert Bruloot, exemplifies this vision. Spanning twenty rooms of the opulent Palazzo, it will showcase a diverse collection of over 200 objects, ranging from high fashion and jewelry to contemporary art and design. This eclectic presentation challenges conventional notions of beauty, exploring its capacity to provoke, disrupt, and inspire new perspectives. By juxtaposing works from celebrated designers and artists with those of emerging talents, the exhibition underscores the foundation's commitment to fostering a rich and inclusive artistic ecosystem that transcends traditional boundaries.
The Fondazione Dries Van Noten: A New Creative Nexus in Venice
Fashion designer Dries Van Noten, in collaboration with Patrick Vangheluwe, is establishing the Fondazione Dries Van Noten in Venice, Italy. This new foundation, housed in the magnificent Palazzo Pisani Moretta on the Grand Canal, is set to open next month. Its core mission is to foster the art of craftsmanship and creative expression across various disciplines, challenging conventional boundaries between art forms. The foundation plans to host a diverse range of activities including presentations, collaborative projects, artist residencies, and special events, catering to artists, designers, and artisans at all stages of their careers. This initiative aims to cultivate a vibrant ecosystem where traditional skills and contemporary innovation intertwine, creating a dynamic space for artistic exploration and cultural exchange within the historic city of Venice.
The vision for the Fondazione Dries Van Noten is rooted in the belief that all creative endeavors are interconnected, stemming from the fundamental gestures and skills of human making. According to a manifesto released by the foundation, Venice is envisioned not as a static museum, but as a living, evolving center where ideas circulate freely. The Palazzo Pisani Moretta, a landmark known for its Gothic exterior and Baroque interiors, will undergo renovation by architect Alberto Torsello, with a satellite site, Studio San Polo, opening later in the year. Van Noten and Vangheluwe expressed their deep appreciation for Venice's unique cultural stimulus and their desire to create a pulsing venue where art and craftsmanship can thrive, engaging students, artists, and visitors alike in a cultural act that connects the city's past, present, and future.
"THE ONLY TRUE PROTEST IS BEAUTY": An Inaugural Exhibition
The Fondazione Dries Van Noten will launch its inaugural exhibition, titled “THE ONLY TRUE PROTEST IS BEAUTY,” on April 25. Curated by Dries Van Noten himself, alongside Belgian fashion designer Geert Bruloot, this exhibition challenges the simplistic understanding of beauty as mere prettiness. Instead, it posits beauty as a powerful force of intensity, capable of generating charged encounters, unexpected harmonies, and subtle disturbances that can awaken new thoughts and create space for innovation. This perspective frames beauty not as an escape from reality, but as a profound means of engaging with it, particularly when it embraces ambiguity, slowness, and contradiction. The exhibition seeks to demonstrate how beauty, in its capacity to disturb rather than merely resolve, can become a subtle yet potent form of protest against societal norms and dogmas.
The exhibition will be presented across twenty rooms within the Palazzo Pisani Moretta, featuring an extensive collection of over 200 objects. These pieces will span a wide array of categories, including fashion, jewelry, fine art, collectible design, photography, glasswork, ceramics, and experimental materials. The curated selection will include haute couture creations by designers such as Christian Lacroix and Comme des Garçons, alongside photographs by Steven Shearer and sculptures by artists like Joyce J. Scott and Peter Buggenhout. Furthermore, the exhibition will highlight emerging talents, such as Palestinian fashion designer Ayham Hassan, whose works will be shown in proximity to ceramics by Rebecca Manson and Kaori Kurihara. The inclusion of artists represented by prominent contemporary design galleries from Antwerp, Brussels, New York, and Barcelona further underscores the exhibition's international scope and its commitment to fostering a comprehensive dialogue on beauty's transformative power.