We are thrilled to announce that ‘Spring Swab’ (2020) by Lionel Jadot, from our collection, is featured in the group exhibition ‘The Only True Protest is Beauty’ presented by Fondazione Dries Van Noten during the Venice Biennale.

Here, beauty is not understood as mere prettiness, but as a moment of intensity - a charged encounter, an unexpected harmony, or a subtle disturbance capable of unsettling, awakening, and creating space for the new. Curated by Dries Van Noten together with Geert Bruloot, it brings together fashion, art, collectible design, and material experimentation under the frescoed ceilings of a 15th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal.

‘Spring Swab’ (2020) begins with something intimate: the chair Lionel Jadot's grandmother sat in every morning for her coffee. Caught between the frames of old spring mattresses, the piece holds memory the way old furniture does, in both poetic and prosaic ways. It is no longer just a chair. It has become a monument to the everyday, to the small rituals that shape a life, and to the beauty that survives in what we choose not to throw away. Lionel Jadot (°1969, Belgium) is an interior architect, artist and designer who works primarily with discarded materials. Across disciplines, he gives cast-off objects a second existence, integrating wood with metal, mineral with vegetal, old with new. The forms that emerge sit somewhere between eras, challenging the expected.

Several other talented artists from our collection are participating in this exhibition as well: Chris Fusaro, Ettore Sottsass, Isaac Monté, Pao Hui Kao, and Richard Štipl.

Practical details : ‘The Only True Protest is Beauty’ @ Fondazione Dries Van Noten (Palazzo Pisani Moretta - San Polo, 2766, 30125 Venice, Italy.  From 25.04.2026 - till 04.10.2026

More info: fondazionedriesvannoten.org