Fondazione Dries Van Noten Opens Its Doors in Venice
The Belgian designer has filled a 15th century Venetian palazzo with fine art, craft, and high fashion to radical effect
The fashion designer Dries Van Noten and his long-time partner Patrick Vangheluwe opened the doors to Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice last week. Standing on its stone staircase, in a dark suit, Van Noten admitted that the pair had deliberated what to do after 38 years in fashion, all of them devoted to his namesake label. “We decided we should give something back, and show people the importance of craftsmanship and creativity,” said Van Noten with suitable Belgian reserve. In front of him, a raging, rugged black sculpture by Peter Buggenhout dominated the entrance. “Some of it is going to make you think,” he continued, “both about the importance of beauty, and what beauty can be.”
The palazzo is less a dazzling backdrop for 200 pieces of work than an integrated part of the exhibition, which meanders across three grand floors. A work of art in its own right, the architecture dates back to the 15th century, but the highlights—the finely decorated wood-paneled Chinese room, the white-and-gold stucco of the Golden bedroom, the Tiepolo ceilings of the piano nobile—come from the mid-18th century. Then, Chiara Pisani inherited a fortune and spent it on the masters of her time to create an extraordinary Rococo interior, which is remarkably intact.
Van Noten and Vangheluwe purchased the palazzo in May 2025. “The first time we visited, I said, ‘No, Dries, No,’” laughs Vangheluwe. “It’s a huge building, and I still find rooms that I didn’t see before. But this is a wonderful project to take on after fashion. It’s not about what is art, what is craft. We are interested in it all.” He goes on to say that they are not collectors. “We buy things we like.”
This attitude informs the exhibition, which is called “The Only Protest is Beauty.” The title is from a song by Phil Ochs, an activist folk singer of the 1960s and 70s based in New York. “The original says, ‘In ugly times, the only true protest is beauty’, but we didn’t want such a negative title,” explains van Noten. “We are reminded enough that times are not so good.”
In the palazzo, visitors will find an assemblage of works at multiple scales, from insect-made jewels by Hubert Duprat (the larvae are put in a tank with metals and stones) to a massive mise-en-scène of precious-metal chess pieces that can be moved with a robotic AI-guided arm by Joseph Arzoumanov. (According to the designer, it plays out a Romeo and Juliet-style family narrative from the times of the Cold War). In one room, a jumble of furniture is stacked and stored like the contents of an attic. Among the pieces is a bronze bench by Nifemi Marcus-Bello, made by his usual method of pouring molten metal into a sand mold. “It was originally made in copper,” says the Lagos-based designer, “but bronze worked better for the palazzo. This is a unique piece.” Nearby is Chris Fusaro’s single-piece fiberglass chair with its blade-like back and legs. “The curves take all the pressure,” says Fusaro, who trained with Gaetano Pesce and now lives in Milan.
Isaac Monté received special instructions from Van Noten for his work—a huge vase of jagged crystals, which are grown around a ceramic core in a tank filled with dissolved oxides and minerals. The growth process takes three weeks, with a further six weeks to dry. “Dries asked for a very specific blue-green color,” says Monté, who is based in Rotterdam. “And I didn’t know why until we brought it here. Then I found out that he wanted to put it next to a blue Comme des Garçons dress.”
The exhibition is delivered with a fashion designer’s eye—an act of intuition and instinct, rather than intense museological deliberation. Thus, a room of clear glass artworks has the fabulously liquid forms of Ritsue Mishima, an artist from Kyoto who works with a master glass blower on Murano, near a swirling vortex by Tony Cragg. The Cragg has never looked so good. Kaori Kurihara’s otherworldly ceramics—shaped and scaled like a human heart, stippled all over with tiny balls of brightly glazed clay—sit on finely carved 18th-century sconces, against a background of gleaming green and gold Bevilacqua silk.
Unsurprisingly, though, it is the fashion that commands the greatest attention. Working with looks by just two designers—Comme des Garçons from 2015 onwards and 15 rarely seen couture pieces from Christian Lacroix—Van Noten leaves us in no doubt that fashion can be one of the finest applied arts. “I worked on a collaboration with Christian Lacroix in 2020, and because of Covid, it didn’t really go anywhere,” says Van Noten. “I said, ‘I owe you something.’” Comme was selected for the radical use of unexpected materials and the sculptural forms.
In one pairing, a Comme des Garçons bride, entirely obscured in big bunches of crunchy white plastic, stands next to a Lacroix equivalent whose fur-like skirt is made of finely feathered silk. Elsewhere, two blood red outfits—Comme’s hanging with pneumatic silken balls; Lacroix’s a feat of ruching to resemble a shimmering pink sea—are separated by a dusty black sculpture by Buggenhout where net, metal paper, and wood are turned into a deconstructed human figure. Each is radical in its own way. All are united by a mastery of material, construction, and form. To see them together is a unique thrill.
Not long ago, Van Noten and Vangheluwe proudly became Venetian residents. Now they have not just acquired this phenomenal palace, but seem determined to knit it into the heart of the city’s cultural life. When the exhibition closes in October, the palazzo will undergo exactly 16 months of necessary renovation. “We have to have it open again for the next Biennale dell’Arte,” says Vangheluwe of the tight time frame. Then we will see exactly what they have in mind.