Iris van Herpen exhibition at Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum will open *Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses* on May 16, 2026, giving the Dutch designer her first major New York exhibition. The show brings more than 140 haute couture creations to the museum’s fifth-floor galleries and places them alongside contemporary artworks, design objects, scientific artifacts and natural history specimens. The museum says the presentation is the North American debut of an exhibition first shown at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2023 and later traveled to venues including Singapore’s ArtScience Museum and Kunsthal Rotterdam. Thursday’s opening-week programming began with member previews and an evening reception at the Brooklyn Museum, ahead of the public opening on Saturday. A separate Thursday night talk pairs van Herpen with Vanessa Friedman, the *New York Times* fashion director and chief fashion critic, in the museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium. The museum listed general admission for that talk at $30, with member tickets at $15, and said the event includes after-hours access to the exhibition. (brooklynmuseum.org) ### What exactly is on view at the Brooklyn Museum? More than 140 garments form the center of the exhibition, according to the museum’s exhibition page. Brooklyn Museum says the show also includes works by artists and designers including Philip Beesley, Rogan Brown, Casey Curran, Kim Keever and Nick Knight, as well as coral, fossils and skeletons used to place van Herpen’s work in dialogue with science and natural history. (brooklynmuseum.org) Rare archival materials and a soundscape by composer Salvador Breed are also part of the installation, the museum says. The exhibition is staged in the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing and the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery on the fifth floor. ### Why is this show being billed as a New York first? The Brooklyn Museum said the exhibition marks van Herpen’s first major New York presentation. (brooklynmuseum.org) In its press materials, the museum described the show as the North American debut of the traveling exhibition and said it builds on the institution’s history of large-scale fashion exhibitions. The exhibition was organized by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, with the Brooklyn Museum presentation organized by Matthew Yokobosky, the museum’s senior curator of fashion and material culture, with Imani Williford, curatorial assistant for photography, fashion and material culture. The original exhibition was curated by Cloé Pitiot and Louise Curtis of the Paris museum, according to the Brooklyn Museum. (brooklynmuseum.org) ### How does the museum describe van Herpen’s approach? Iris van Herpen is presented by the museum as a designer working across couture, technology and science. The museum says her designs draw on fields including mathematics, neuroscience, marine biology, paleontology, mycology, mineralogy and astronomy, and translate those references into sculptural garments and experimental materials. (brooklynmuseum.org) The Brooklyn Museum says the exhibition is arranged around themes including water, skeletal and anatomical structures, motion, sound, light and the interconnectedness of nature. Its exhibition text says the show examines “the body’s place in space” and the relationship between clothing, the environment and future-oriented design. (brooklynmuseum.org) ### Which public figures and collaborators are tied to the show? The Brooklyn Museum says van Herpen’s work has been worn by Beyoncé, Björk, Cate Blanchett, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. Those names appear in the museum’s opening-week event listings as part of its description of the designer’s public profile and influence in fashion and performance. (brooklynmuseum.org) Van Herpen’s Thursday conversation with Friedman adds a media figure closely associated with fashion criticism to the opening program. The museum said a limited number of tickets were added because of demand for that event. ### When can visitors go, and how long will it run? May 16 is the public opening date listed by the Brooklyn Museum, and December 6, 2026, is the closing date on the museum’s exhibition page. (brooklynmuseum.org) Timed tickets are required, according to the museum, which directs visitors to its own ticketing page for public and member entry. The next concrete milestone is Saturday’s public opening at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn. (brooklynmuseum.org) The exhibition is scheduled to remain on view through December 6, and tickets and program details are being handled through the museum’s website. (brooklynmuseum.org)