Since quitting the fashion game, Helmut Lang has shed his designer lifestyle and shredded his archive, even using those clothes as, well, new material . Now a resident of the farther reaches of Long Island, Lang is making a rare return to Manhattan for a solo show of new sculpture that proves that even though he’s no longer in fashion, he hasn’t lost his touch.

Organized by art-world bigwigs Mark Fletcher, Sadie Coles and Neville Wakefield, the exhibition Helmut Lang: Sculptures will feature more than 20 new pieces: monochrome totems reconstructed from uneven layers of pre-used materials, from rubber and foam to sheepskin and tar. Like earlier work made from destroying his archives, the pieces show signs of their former industrial uses.

The exhibit will be held May 5 – June 15 in a Greenwich Village townhouse at 24 Washington Square North, not far from Lang’s onetime atelier.