Iris van Herpen's Sculptural Couture Responds to Nature at the Brooklyn Museum

Visitors encounter Iris van Herpen’s Seijaku dress (2016), covered with hundreds of glass bubbles that float around the body, presented as a frozen wave. A soundscape by Salvador Breed fills the galleries, and the garment is positioned unusually close to viewers. Van Herpen aimed to bring the audience near enough to touch the work, emphasizing that closeness improves the experience. The show, on view through December 6, is her first major American exhibition and pairs about 140 haute couture creations with Brooklyn Museum works, fossils from the American Museum of Natural History, and specimens from the Yale Peabody Museum and the Staten Island Museum. The exhibition evolved from a 2023 Paris presentation and includes Weightlessness of the Unknown (2024).

"“I really pushed how close I could bring the audience towards the garments,” the Dutch couturier tells Galerie. “The museum was quite scared, I guess. Theoretically, people are so close that they can touch the work-and that's what I wanted. The closer the better.”"

"On view through December 6, “Sculpting the Senses” is van Herpen's first major American show. It is also the first to place her 140 haute couture creations alongside works from the Brooklyn Museum's collection, fossils from the American Museum of Natural History, and specimens from the Yale Peabody Museum and the Staten Island Museum."

"“When [the Paris] exhibition opened, I started working on these aerial sculptures,” she says of Weightlessness of the Unknown (2024), which makes its debut here. “I'm sure it had to do with going back into my work-feeling the need to translate that into a more aerial perspective... zooming out to capture a bird's eye view.”"

"Curated with Matthew Yokobosky and Imani Williford, this is the largest and most personal iteration yet. Van Herpen describes the months spent combing through archives of her atelier as “like going through my diary, and then picking the ones to live here.” Eleven themed chapters unfold in her chosen order, moving from water to cosmos, with stops at anatomy,"

Read at Galerie Magazine