The Collezione Ramo presents the Milano Drawing Week each year, an event organized in collaboration with and under the patronage of the Municipality of Milan – Department of Culture, now in its fifth edition.
This initiative, structured as a constellation of exhibitions spread across the city of Milan, was conceived to promote drawing by fostering a dialogue between modern and contemporary art, based on the belief that art history cannot be separated from this practice and that works on paper represent the most spontaneous space where artists’ ideas take shape.
The project’s format allows the Collezione Ramo to open itself to the city, offering cultural institutions and art galleries a selection of works on paper by 20th-century Italian artists. Artists from different backgrounds and generations, engaged in drawing practices, are invited to choose a work from this core selection of the Collezione Ramo and place it in dialogue with their own artistic research within one of the participating venues.
The goal is to create a conversation between the vast historical and artistic heritage preserved in the Collection and the contemporary perspectives that drive today’s artistic research. The event also provides the public with an opportunity to explore a medium that remains relatively underappreciated, yet unites creatives across disciplines and communicates with immediacy to all audiences.
In addition, a program of collateral events enriches the initiative, including public talks with internationally renowned curators and workshops led by artists and educators, aimed at exploring the infinite possibilities of works on paper.
As an incentive for continued artistic production on paper, the Milano Drawing Week also features the Milano Drawing Week Award powered by Gruppo Censeo. This award is given to one of the participating contemporary artists by a jury composed of architects and designers. The prize consists of a monetary grant, fully supported by Gruppo Censeo.
Through the creation of a network of public institutions, private galleries, and independent art spaces sharing the common goal of promoting this still underrecognized medium, Milano Drawing Week aspires to map drawing in all its facets and to continually expand its audience.
Irina Zucca Alessandrelli, curator of the Collezione Ramo, states:
“Milano Drawing Week is an annual opportunity to give drawing the recognition it deserves. Drawing fosters thought like nothing else—while drawing, one discovers, and when observing the mark, one rediscovers the artist’s original idea in its purest form.”
To date, Milano Drawing Week has involved numerous exhibition venues (Castello Sforzesco, Casa degli Artisti, Museo di Storia Naturale, APALAZZOGALLERY, Cabinet Studiolo, Castiglioni, Ciaccia Levi, Clima, Ex Elettrofonica, Francesca Minini, Galera San Soda, Galleria Fumagalli, Galleria Monica De Cardenas, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Galleria ZERO…, Gió Marconi, Gregor Staiger, kaufmann repetto, Loom Gallery, M77 Gallery, Martina Simeti, Mega, Nashira Gallery, OPR Gallery, Renata Fabbri, Schiavo-Zoppelli Gallery, Settantaventidue, Spazio Lima, Studio Guenzani, Tiziana Di Caro, Vistamare), and a wide range of national and international artists from past and present (Carla Accardi, Vincenzo Agnetti, Stefano Arienti, Enrico Baj, Giacomo Balla, Alexandra Barth, Gianfranco Baruchello, Marco Belfiore, Monia Ben Hamoudal, Mirella Bentivoglio, Riccardo Beretta, Tomaso Binga, Irma Blank, Umberto Boccioni, John Bock, Alighiero Boetti, Benni Bosetto, Sergio Breviario, Alberto Burri, Massimo Campigli, Costanza Candeloro, Alik Cavaliere, Monster Chetwynd, Sandro Chia, Umberto Chiodi, Carlo Cossignani, Corydon Cowansage, Dadamaino, Giulia Dall’Olio, Betty Danon, Giorgio de Chirico, Stefano de Paolis, Filippo de Pisis, Leonardo Devito, Luca Gioacchino Di Bernardo, Braco Dimitrijevic, Luciano Fabro, Vadim Fishkin, Lucio Fontana, Tom Friedman, Domenico Gnoli, Miss Goffetown, Carlo and Fabio Ingrassia, Alex Katz, Juul Kraijer, Ugo La Pietra, Mino Maccari, Mad Meg, Marco Andrea Magni, Marcello Maloberti, Piero Manzoni, Vijay Masharani, Fabio Mauri, Fausto Melotti, Mario Merz, Giorgio Morandi, Marco Pio Mucci, Valerio Nicolai, Alek O., Dennis Oppenheim, Adrian Paci, Marco Paleari, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Nathlie Provosty, Mario Radice, Carol Rama, Marta Roberti, Medardo Rosso, Andrea Sala, Emilio Scanavino, Dasha Shishkin, Francesco Simeti, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Ettore Tripodi, Brandi Twilley, Ignacio Uriarte, Lily van der Stokker, Serena Vestrucci, Adolfo Wildt, Zoe Williams).
