“The only true protest is beauty” — Phil Ochs
In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.
On August 17, 2026, I’m in Venice for the Dries Van Noten Foundation, which has chosen the extraordinary Palazzo Pisani Moretta — a 15th-century Venetian jewel — as its new home. The exhibition’s title, curated by Van Noten himself together with Geert Bruloot, is drawn from a line by Phil Ochs: a manifesto that raises beauty to an instrument of provocation and transformation.
Moving through the rooms of Palazzo Pisani Moretta is already an experience in itself. Eighteenth-century frescoes, Murano glass chandeliers and terrazzo floors form both the backdrop and the counterpart to the works on display, in a continuous dialogue between historic architecture and contemporary vision. Even the grand entrance staircase, with its leaded windows and the light filtering onto the stone steps, prepares the visitor for what lies ahead.
Room after room brings together creations by Christian Lacroix and Comme des Garçons: sculptural silhouettes in red and fuchsia leather, garments that seem born from the encounter between couture and material art, voluminous wigs that turn the body into architecture. Alongside these, fairy-tale cloaks and robes play with layered floral prints, almost like wearable tapestries.
One of the most striking rooms holds a series of bridal gowns reimagined in an almost liturgical key: beaded crowns topped with a cross, tulle veils, gold embroidery and floral appliqués on ivory silks. It’s a vocabulary borrowed from Venetian religious and nuptial tradition, returned transfigured — suspended between devotion and couture.
Alongside the fashion, the exhibition includes sculptural installations that work with raw matter: an aquamarine crystalline block that seems to grow like a geode on a black pedestal, a crystal sphere that returns the palace’s leaded windows in negative, an organic knot entirely covered in feathers that recalls the texture of snakeskin. These are almost mineral presences, answering in silence to the baroque splendor of the rooms.
The most intense point of the visit remains Steven Shearer’s photographic series, portraying sleeping subjects to explore sleep and the emotions it carries. The monumental projections — a face resting in a leather jacket, a profile marked by an improvised tattoo, a body lying beside a baroque still life of flowers and whisky — openly dialogue with the palace’s classical paintings, confronting two distant ways of representing the body at rest.
What strikes most is a small photo book left open on a table, filled with dozens of tiny shots of people — and animals — asleep: it feels like a private archive, almost a visual diary, and is perhaps the truest key to understanding where this research on sleep comes from.
Seeing these images set beside Lacroix’s and Comme des Garçons’ creations — bodies surrendered to rest, sculptural silhouettes, an entire book of other people’s sleep — is what moved me more than anything else: there’s something universal and disarming in that suspended state, one that knows no pretense.
Even the palace’s architectural details — an eighteenth-century painting flanked by two candelabra, in a room upholstered in red-and-gold brocade — deserve a slow look: they’re the quiet frame in which the exhibition comes to life.
Quelques mois avant l’ouverture, en mai 2026, Dries Van Noten était déjà à Venise — cette fois en tant qu’invité dans l’atelier de Sigrid de Montrond au Palazzo Bragadin, siège de l’Atelier Visconti. Barbara Pigazzi était également présente, et a saisi l’instant dans un portrait de Sigrid de Montrond avec Van Noten en invité.
THE ONLY TRUE PROTEST IS BEAUTY Dries Van Noten Foundation Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Venice April 25 – October 4, 2026
Founders: Dries Van Noten and Patrick Vangheluwe Curatorship and scenography: Dries Van Noten with Geert Bruloot fondazionedriesvannoten.org
Photo reportage and narrative: Barbara Pigazzi 📷 See the full report on Instagram
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