Today, August 25th, Fondazione Dries Van Noten releases The Only True Protest Is Beauty, its first editorial project, published by Marsilio Arte. Created alongside the Foundation’s inaugural Presentation at Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice, the volume expands on the exhibition’s exploration of contemporary craftsmanship and the increasingly fluid connections between fashion, art, design and other creative fields.
The book brings together newly commissioned essays, extensive visual documentation and close looks at the works, artists and processes behind the Presentation. Designed by Sebastiano Girardi Studio, which also developed the visual identity of the Fondazione and its inaugural project, the publication gives typography, image sequencing and materiality an active role in its narrative.
Glenn Adamson traces craftsmanship from Venice to the present
The book opens with three essays establishing its intellectual framework. Design historian, curator and writer Glenn Adamson begins with Venice, revisiting John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice and its ideas around craftsmanship.
For Adamson, Venice is more than a backdrop: it becomes a starting point for considering making as a cultural force. His essay connects Ruskin’s 19th-century understanding of craft with the Fondazione’s contemporary approach, suggesting that craftsmanship can challenge conventions while generating new meanings.
Alexander Fury looks at fashion as material memory
Fashion journalist, author and critic Alexander Fury examines fashion through craftsmanship, identity, memory and artistic expression. His contribution considers clothing as a practice that crosses disciplines while remaining grounded in the physical, artisanal act of making.
Fury places fashion within a broader material culture, where the appetite for what comes next exists alongside the constant reinvention of familiar forms.
Ezra Babski imagines a world beyond art and craft
Writer and curator Ezra Babski explores the increasingly porous boundaries between art, craft and design. Reflecting the ethos of the Presentation, his essay advocates for creative practice shaped by dialogue, hybridity and exchange rather than rigid categories.
He asks what can emerge when the traditional distinction between art and craft begins to dissolve, pointing to images, memories and emotional connections as ways of navigating this shifting territory.
Palazzo Pisani Moretta becomes part of the story
The architecture of Palazzo Pisani Moretta runs throughout the publication, with its ornate interiors, decorative details and layered history becoming integral to the book’s visual and conceptual narrative.
The volume captures the Palazzo at a particular moment, documenting the inaugural Presentation before its conclusion on 4 October 2026 and the restoration work that follows. The Only True Protest Is Beauty links the memory of historic Venice with Fondazione Dries Van Noten’s contemporary vision of making, preservation and cultural exchange.
The Only True Protest Is Beauty is available from August 25th, 2026 through Fondazione Dries Van Noten’s website and store, as well as selected museum shops and bookshops across Italy, with international distribution to follow later this year.
Read Dries Van Noten and Theaster Gates in conversation on the enduring necessity of beauty, the purpose of art, and its ability to change how we experience the world.
FONDAZIONE DRIES VAN NOTEN Book Preview Visual © SEBASTIANO GIRARDI STUDIO
