Iris van Herpen has garnered international acclaim for her couture designs, which interweave traditional handwork with groundbreaking 3D-printing technology, computer modeling and engraving constructed in collaboration with architects, engineers and digital design specialists. Her visually impressive, sculptural designs—often featuring unusual materials such as magnets, umbrella ribs and synthetic boat rigging—create silhouettes that appear both organic and futuristic. Her work has been worn by style icons such as Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Bjork and has graced the runways of Amsterdam, London and Paris.
 
Iris van Herpen (Dutch, born 1984), Magnetic Motion, September 2014. Photo by Bart Oomes, No 6 Studios. © Iris van Herpen. Purchase with funds from the Decorative Arts Endowment and the Decorative Arts Acquisition Trust, High Museum of Art. 

“Iris van Herpen: Transforming Fashion” features 45 outfits carefully selected from 15 of van Herpen’s collections designed from 2008 through 2015, offering a comprehensive visual survey of her design career to date. Included are 18 pieces from the designer’s six most recent lines and a selection of her shoe designs, as well as 27 pieces from the Groninger Museum’s 2012 solo exhibition of van Herpen’s work—all displayed on custom mannequins. The accompanying wall texts explore the underlying concepts for each piece and examine how intuition and imagination are central to the designer’s process. 

To provide a more in-depth look at van Herpen’s creations, a gallery in the exhibition is devoted to showcasing the designer’s innovative materials, with examples available for visitors to touch. These samples are accompanied by detailed descriptions that explain how van Herpen’s partnerships with architects, designers, scientists and 3-D printing companies inform, inspire and shape her work. Also on view is a 10-minute video featuring an interview with van Herpen and footage from her six most recent runway shows.
 
The exhibition is co-curated by Schleuning, Mark Wilson, chief curator for the Groninger Museum, and Sue-an van der Zijpp, curator of contemporary art for the Groninger. Following its presentation at the High, the exhibition will travel to multiple venues throughout North America, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum (Fall 2016), Dallas Museum of Art (Spring 2017), Cincinnati Museum of Art (Fall 2017) and Phoenix Art Museum (Spring 2018). 

About Iris van Herpen Iris van Herpen (b. 1984 in Warmel, the Netherlands) had an intuitive appreciation of fashion and art as a youth and became interested in designing clothes while attending the Preparatory Course Art & Design at the Artez Institute of the Arts Arnhem. Iris van Herpen went on to study Fashion Design at Artez and held internships with Alexander McQueen in London and Claudy Jongstra in Amsterdam. Iris van Herpen’s 2006 graduation collection “Machine Jewellery” demonstrated her interest in the visualization of elusive concepts and intangible elements and her inventiveness in material use and treatment. A year after graduating, van Herpen began designing womenswear collections under her own name. Through her extensive interdisciplinary research and collaborations with other artists, van Herpen has developed a unique and avant-garde style aesthetic that has been lauded by TIME Magazine, InStyle and Women’s Wear Daily, among other notable publications. In 2011, at age 27, she became the youngest member ever to join the exclusive official calendar of the Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week, and in 2014 she was awarded the highly prestigious ANDAM Award. Her designs are currently featured in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 

About the High Museum of Art
The High is the leading art museum in the southeastern United States. With more than 15,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American art; a significant collection of historic and contemporary decorative arts and design; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography, folk and self-taught art, and African art. The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists. For more information about the High, visit high.org.
About The Woodruff Arts Center The Woodruff Arts Center is one of the largest arts centers in the world, home to the Alliance Theatre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum of Art and Arts for Learning. Each year, these arts organizations play host to over 1.2 million patrons at the Woodruff Arts Center’s Midtown Atlanta location, one of the only arts centers in the U.S. to host both visual and performing arts on a single campus. Through its work with educators and schools, the Woodruff Arts Center serves over 300,000 students annually and is the largest arts educator in Georgia.  

About the Groninger Museum
With a constant influx of around 200,000 visitors a year, the Groninger Museum is one of the most important museums in the Netherlands. It is renowned for its exceptional post-modern building, which was designed by Alessandro Mendini in conjunction with guests architects Philippe Starck, Michele de Lucchi, and Coop Himmelb(l)au. The museum owns a centuries-old historical collection including archaeological finds, North-Netherlands traditional costumes, and Asian ceramics. In the field of modern and contemporary art, the museum is the proud owner of a large collection of Dutch expressionist work and post-modern Italian and contemporary design, staged photography and avant-garde fashion. The Groninger Museum applies a varied exhibition policy that devotes attention to regional, national and international developments in history and contemporary art. The Groninger Museum also distinguishes itself by often presenting the first international solo survey exhibition of an artist or designer. Exhibitions of the work of Azzedine Alaia, Marc Newson, Viktor and Rolf, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Hussein Chalayan, Song Dong, Jaime Hayon and Joris Laarman amply illustrate this fact. 

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HIGH MUSEUM OF ART
1280 Peachtree St NE
Atlanta, GA 30309,Verenigde Staten
+1 (404) 733-4400
high.org