“Are we not in Venice together, and what better place is there for the meeting of dear friends? See how [...] the sky and the sea and the rosy air and the marble of the palaces all shimmer and melt together.”
— Henry James (1888)
On the shimmering banks of the Grand Canal in Venice’s sestiere of San Polo stands Palazzo Pisani Moretta. Originally built in the late fifteenth century, the Venetian Gothic fiorito-style palazzo—with its rose-pink facade, elegant mullioned windows, and pointed ogival arches—is amongst the city’s finest architectural treasures. Acquired by the noble Pisani Moretta family in the seventeenth century and inherited by Chiara Pisani in the eighteenth century, under the young widow’s extravagant yet discerning patronage the palazzo underwent a radical Rococo renovation: the external Gothic staircase was replaced by a monumental internal staircase supported by columns of white marble and Istrian stone; a third floor with a terrace overlooking the Grand Canal was added; and the era’s greatest masters were commissioned to adorn its interiors with late Baroque trompe l’œil frescoes and intricate white-and-gold stuccowork. To this day, it is these layers of architectural intervention and accumulated ornamental detail that define the palazzo’s inimitable character.
The latest custodians to embrace the palazzo’s “extraordinary artistic patrimony” are Belgian fashion designer Dries van Noten and his life partner Patrick Vangheluwe, who acquired Palazzo Pisani Moretta in 2025 following Van Noten’s departure from his eponymous fashion house with “the 129th and last show of Dries.” Conceived as the home of Fondazione Dries Van Noten, an independent cultural initiative dedicated to craftsmanship, the acquisition marked the culmination of the pair’s lifelong fascination with art collecting and architectural restoration. Initially searching for what Van Noten describes as a “neutral contemporary space,” the pair instead found themselves in a love affair with the palazzo. It was precisely its refusal of neutrality—its celestial ceilings, Murano chandeliers, marble fireplaces, terrazzo floors, and grand ceremonial rooms—that captivated the non-Purists, offering all by way of the challenge, surprise and tension that resist “the acceleration that flattens everything into the same register, the cynicism that makes sensitivity feel naive, [and] the pressure to move so fast that nothing has time to mean anything.”
Tan FRP panels diffuse the light within the Vestibule
Opening its doors to Friends of the Fondazione, Fondazione Dries Van Noten’s inaugural presentation, The Only True Protest Is Beauty (25 April to 4 October, 2026), borrows its title from activist and singer-songwriter Phil Ochs’ 1960s lyric: “In such ugly times / The true protest is beauty.” While Van Noten’s work and public reflections have long been devoted to beauty, our conversation begins, instead, with these ugly times. “When we stop noticing, when we lose the capacity to be moved or surprised or unsettled by what is around us,” he says, “that is when times feel truly ugly to me.”
Transported by crate along the Grand Canal before ascending the palazzo’s stone steps, more than 200 works spanning art, photography, design, ceramics, glass, fashion and jewellery have been brought together within the palazzo. Throughout its ornate rooms, works of individual beauty are held in deliberately unsettling dialogue.
A rare Christian Lacroix Haute Couture ensemble stands before Alessandro Longhi’s portrait of Pietro Vettor Pisani, while ceramicist Kaori Kurihara’s Pierrot fleuri, Facettes de printemps, and Pirouette botanique (all 2025) are installed against the densely patterned wallpapers and Baroque still lifes of the Sala dell’Apoteosi Pisani. What, then, of the next new beauty? “It will emerge,” Van Noten predicts, “quietly and without announcement.”
From ugly times and the next new beauty to Palazzo Pisani Moretta and its forthcoming restoration with renowned Venetian architect Alberto Torsello of TA Torsello Architettura, our conversation ranges widely. Yet, there are limits to what Van Noten will discuss. “Beyond that, I prefer not to say too much,” he says in closing.
“One of the things I have promised myself with the Fondazione is to protect the element of surprise.”
| Amelia Stevens | Fondazione Dries Van Noten’s inaugural presentation borrows its title from activist and singer-songwriter Phil Ochs’ 1960s lyric: “In such ugly times / The true protest is beauty.” You have said that you believe the world is beautiful, but I wanted to begin with the question of the “ugly times” we currently find ourselves in. What do “ugly times” mean to you? |
| Dries Van Noten | Ugly times, for me, are not only about wars or political failures, though those are very present and very real. They are also about a subtler kind of ugliness: the acceleration that flattens everything into the same register, the cynicism that makes sensitivity feel naive, the pressure to move so fast that nothing has time to mean anything. When we stop noticing, when we lose the capacity to be moved or surprised or unsettled by what is around us, that is when times feel truly ugly to me. Beauty is the antidote not because it distracts from reality, but because it insists on remaining open to it. |
| AS | Having lived a life immersed first in your family’s world of art collecting and tailoring, and later in building your eponymous fashion house, Dries Van Noten, what is your personal definition of beauty as protest? |
| DVN | Beauty as protest is beauty that refuses to be comfortable. Growing up around tailoring taught me that every gesture carries intention, and that sensibility never left me. Throughout my career, I was drawn to beauty that carried tension, that placed unexpected things together and asked you to reconsider what you thought you already understood. That moment of hesitation, of looking again, is where beauty stops being decorative and becomes something closer to a question. Not a strategy exactly, more an instinct, a quiet insistence that complexity deserves to exist and that slowing down to notice it is never a passive act. |
| AS | Following “the 129th and last show of Dries” in 2024, you conceived of the Fondazione Dries Van Noten. How does the Fondazione respond to “ugly times,” and how does it seek to discover the “next new beauty”? |
| DVN | Stepping away from fashion was a reorientation towards what has always mattered most: the act of making, the exchange between people, the belief that beauty requires time to remain alive. The Fondazione offers an escape by creating a space where a different quality of attention is possible, where things can unfold slowly and complexity is protected rather than flattened. As for the next new beauty, I don't think it can be designed or declared. It will emerge from encounters between different practices and different generations, quietly and without announcement—which is perhaps the only way it ever truly arrives. |
| AS | You have described your decision to base the Fondazione in Venice as a combination of “a beautiful city” and “a beautiful life.” What do you see when you look at Venice, and what does your life there look like? |
| DVN | Venice teaches you to look differently. Without cars, without the rhythm that cities usually impose, you move at a pace that allows things to reveal themselves. Daily life here has a texture that feels increasingly rare: the markets, the artisans still working in their small workshops, the students moving through the streets. It is a city that is genuinely alive beneath the surface that tourists see. For me, living here means being constantly reminded that beauty is not something you [can seek out or] find. It is something you encounter when you are present enough to notice it. |
| AS | In 2025, you and your life partner Patrick Vangheluwe acquired Palazzo Pisani Moretta to house the Fondazione. You have described your relationship to the palazzo as “a love affair”—whether its grand rooms, ornamental details, or storied histories, what first endeared you to the palazzo, and what convinced you that it was the right home for the Fondazione? |
| DVN | We had originally imagined a neutral contemporary space for the Fondazione; the palazzo taught us we were wrong. The moment we stepped inside, something became clear. It was not a single detail, but the totality of it: the way the rooms hold light, the frescoes by Tiepolo and Guarana that inhabit the spaces as naturally as the furniture. The building has a very strong personality, and rather than feeling intimidating that felt like an invitation. A space with this much presence creates a conversation with whatever you place inside it, and that conversation between past and present is at the heart of everything we are trying to do here. |
| AS | Opened in April 2026, The Only True Protest Is Beauty presents over 200 works by 50 artists working across art, photography, design, ceramics, glass, fashion, jewellery, and more. This eclecticism echoes the artistic layering, colourful prints, and rich materials of both your personal approach to art collecting and your collections for Dries Van Noten. How did these personal and professional experiences prepare you to curate this inaugural exhibition with Geert Bruloot, and in what ways did you consciously depart from them? |
| DVN | A lifetime of looking prepared me more than anything else. The instinct for combination, for sensing whether things speak to each other or not, comes directly from years of working with collections, with ateliers, with artists whose practices I followed closely. Geert is a long-time friend and collaborator, and having him as a consultant meant that my instincts were constantly tested and refined by someone who knows my sensibility deeply and is not afraid to push back. The most conscious departure was releasing the need for resolution. In fashion, everything moves toward a conclusion, a show, a moment where it all lands. Here, I allowed things to remain open, to coexist without needing to agree. The palazzo holds contradictions naturally, and working within it taught me to trust that openness. |
| AS | How did you and Geert go about selecting works for this inaugural presentation, and can you speak about any works or crafts that are particularly meaningful to you? |
| DVN | The selection grew through conversation and spontaneous encounters, but also research and visits. Emotion was always the first filter, before any conceptual consideration. Some pieces arrived with a sense of inevitability, others only found their place once something else entered the room and created the right conditions around them. What feels most meaningful are always the works where you can feel the hand most clearly, where the time and thought invested in the making are almost tangible. That quality of complete commitment to the gesture behind the work is what stays with me, and what connects everything in the exhibition across such different disciplines and generations. |
| AS | You have gestured towards the question of whether individually beautiful objects are always necessarily beautiful when brought together. Have you encountered any tension between an object’s individual beauty and its role within the presentation’s curated ensemble, and if so, how have you and Geert brought these works into productive dialogue? |
| DVN | That tension is not something to resolve, it is something to work with. I have always believed that combinations matter more than isolated [objects], but that does not mean every combination succeeds. There were works we were certain about individually that changed completely once they arrived inside the palazzo, sometimes revealing something unexpected, occasionally requiring a complete rethink. What we looked for was not harmony but resonance, which is a different thing entirely. Two works can be in genuine dialogue without agreeing, and some of the most interesting moments in the exhibition came from exactly that kind of productive friction, where the tension between works opened something that neither could have suggested alone. |
| AS | Alongside bringing objects and people together, preservation is also a recurring theme throughout your life’s work. Could you speak about the forthcoming renovation of the palazzo, and why this is an important project for you? |
| DVN | Caring for the palazzo feels like one of the most fundamental responsibilities we took on when we acquired it. A building of this age and significance demands that kind of commitment. When the inaugural presentation closes in October, the renovation will begin, led by Venetian architect Alberto Torsello. The approach is one of deep respect, retaining everything that can be retained [and] introducing contemporary solutions, only where necessary, to allow the building to function safely and sustainably for the future. It is not about transformation but about stewardship, ensuring that everything the palazzo carries—its history, its craftsmanship, its extraordinary artistic patrimony—remains alive and accessible for generations to come. In that sense, the renovation is completely aligned with everything the Fondazione stands for. |
| AS | Lastly, you speak of your appreciation of history and tradition, but also of your desire to evolve, surprise, and unsettle the familiar. Are there any upcoming projects with the Fondazione that you are particularly excited about or would like to share? |
| DVN | While the palazzo undergoes its renovation, Studio San Polo will become our main stage, and that shift in itself feels exciting. It is a different kind of space, more intimate and more experimental, and I think it will allow us to try things that the grandeur of the palazzo might not naturally invite: residencies, partnerships, events that bring unexpected disciplines and people together, programming that can move and respond quickly rather than requiring months of preparation. Beyond that, I prefer not to say too much. One of the things I have promised myself with the Fondazione is to protect the element of surprise, for our visitors but also for ourselves. The most interesting things that will happen here are probably the ones we have not yet anticipated, and I want to leave room for those to arrive. |
