In Venice, some houses seem to belong less to the world of luxury than to the world of private mythologies. For decades, Codognato It cultivates this rare ambiguity: a jewelry collection where the ornament dialogues with the symbol, where each piece seems to be haunted by the ghosts of a city built on reflections, relics, and rituals.
The invitation addressed to the Venetian house for the inaugural exhibition of the Fondazione Dries Van Noten in Venice thus takes on an almost natural dimension. The Only True Protest Is Beauty, This event, conceived by Dries Van Noten and Geert Bruloot, occupies the halls of the Palazzo Pisani Moretta as an aesthetic diversion where textile, photography, glass, design and contemporary art intersect.
Among more than two hundred works, Codognato It appears as a singular presence: the only jeweler invited to this conversation between disciplines. Fifteen creations have been personally selected by Dries Van Noten. Some belong to collectors close to the house; others have been designed specifically for the exhibition. All bear that immediately recognizable writing that makes them Codognato A unique case in European jewelry: carved skulls like Renaissance vanity pieces, esoteric symbols, architectural volumes, Byzantine references, and black Romanticism.
What strikes about this selection is not the effect of virtuosity, but the continuity. Codognato, The heritage never presents itself as a fixed archive. Subsequent generations seem to work the memory of the house as a living material, capable of being moved, altered, or reinterpreted. Some of the exhibits thus take on historical motifs from the workshop, while the recent creations open up to more stripped-down forms, almost sculptural.
The exhibition itself rejects the classic museum logic. The twenty rooms of the piano nobile of the Venetian palace form an intuitive journey, where the works respond to the ornamentation of the ceilings, to the moving light of the canals, and to the ancient materials. In this environment filled with history, the jewels Codognato They acquire a particular presence: they do not seem simply exposed, but have been reintegrated into their natural territory.
Mario and Cristina Codognato’s statement also reveals the profound significance of this participation. More than a recognition at the international level, they see it as a way of representing Venetian craftsmanship within a foundation destined to become one of the city’s new cultural centers. An idea of Venice far from the tourist scene, more intimate, where the artisanal gesture remains a contemporary language.
At a time when jewelry often seeks its legitimacy from the world of fashion or the art market, Codognato It recalls another possibility: that of an object capable of carrying narratives, obsessions and a collective memory without ever losing its primary function of being worn against the skin.
Exhibition The only true protest is beauty until October 4, 2026.
