Franciacorta among art and international design, from Milano Design Week to RenBen 2026 in Chicago

From the immersive installation conceived for Milan Design Week, the event which transforms the Lombard capital into the world creative hub, to the partnership with RenBen Chicago, a charity event held during the renowned Expo Art Week, whose concept this year was entrusted to Maurizio Cattelan, one of the most internationally acclaimed Italian artists, Franciacorta continues to invest increasingly in the global art and design landscape. At the Milan Design Week (April 20th - 26th) of this year, Franciacorta is presenting itself for the first time with a dedicated space: the Slowear showroom hosts the immersive installation “Franciacorta Studio”, created in collaboration with Luce di Carrara, which narrates the essence of Franciacorta through a sensory journey combining design, wine, and landscape. Overseas, Franciacorta was the official partner, and therefore the protagonist of all the toasts at RenBen 2026, the annual gala of the Renaissance Society of Chicago, a one of a kind event in which each edition is entirely conceived by an invited artist, who defines its concept, atmosphere, and content. This year, gala, held during Expo Art Week, was conceived by Maurizio Cattelan, famous for his irreverent and provocative works who transformed the evening into a “Silent Party”, an immersive and performative experience structured as a true artistic journey. Here, Franciacorta ironically chilled in retro bathtubs was served to guests and artists, bringing made in Italy into a strongly contemporary format. This continues the journey of the Franciacorta Consortium through prestigious partnerships and events outside the wine circuit, spanning art, cinema, fashion, motorsport, and design, from the Mille Miglia to the Emmy Awards, from the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia to the Michelin Guide (in Italy and the United States), from Milan Fashion Week to the Rome Film Festival.
While in past editions of Milan Design Week the presence of Italy most renowned Metodo Classico was tied to collaborations with individual brands, this year Franciacorta has chosen its own dedicated space with “Franciacorta Studio”, an exhibition and cultural project which brings material, design, and territory into dialogue. Hosted inside Slowear Milan spaces, the project focuses on the theme of the transformation of matter, a principle shared by wine and marble, two elements seemingly distant yet united by origin, time, and human intervention. Both arise from a territory and, through natural processes and handmade know-how, evolve to express form, identity, and value. “Franciacorta Studio” unfolds through two complementary projects: an immersive exhibition path which tells the story of the Franciacorta terroir through the dimensions of land and people, intertwining natural elements, installations, and marble surfaces created in collaboration with Luce di Carrara; and a program of tastings and experiences conceived as a cultural and educational platform, guiding visitors through the styles, techniques, and most significant expressions of Franciacorta.
“Bringing Franciacorta to Design Week means telling the story of our territory through a new language, one capable of dialoguing with the world of design and creativity - explains Emanuele Rabotti, President of the Franciacorta Consortium -  wine arises from a balance between nature, time, and human labor, elements which are also deeply rooted in the culture of design. With this installation, we want to offer visitors an experience that allows them, even if only for a few minutes, to enter the soul of Franciacorta”. It is no coincidence that this dialogue takes place with a material such as marble. Just as stone is extracted and transformed through human labor, grapes, soil, and climate similarly come together and are interpreted to give life to a wine that carries with it the memory of its origins. The exhibition translates this vision into a narrative journey articulated across different environments, each dedicated to the elements that define the Franciacorta terroir: earth, water, wind, people, and time. Visitors move through spaces where materials, sounds, and lighting evoke the natural and productive conditions which shape the wine. From the morainic soil flooring, recalling the geological structure of the territory, to the gentle movement of drapery suggesting wind among the vines, to luminous surfaces inspired by the depths of Lake Iseo, each element builds a sensory narrative that begins with raw matter and culminates in its most refined transformation. The aim is to offer an experience that goes beyond tasting, not merely sampling a wine, but entering, even briefly, the cultural and natural landscape from which it arises.
Throughout the week, the space will also host a calendar of events designed to accompany the public in discovering the different expressions of Franciacorta. Alongside the exhibition opening, visitable from April 21st to 25th, evening tastings and in-depth sessions are scheduled for both enthusiasts and professionals. The program spans some of the denomination most representative styles, from Dosaggio Zero to Satèn, from Millesimati to Reserves, as well as more experimental encounters intended to stimulate the senses and dialogue. Among these are a blind tasting guided by blind sommelier Luca Boccoli, a sound experience pairing wine with musical frequencies, and a blind tasting comparing Franciacorta, Champagne, and Prosecco. For one week, the showroom will become a kind of Design Week living room, a refined yet informal space where people can pause, meet, and discover new connections between wine, design, and creativity.
In recent days, the Renaissance Society of Chicago, an independent museum presenting contemporary art exhibitions, performances, events, and publications, hosted “RenBen 2026: The Silent Party!”, its annual fundraising event, welcoming 400 guests. This year, the concept was entrusted to Maurizio Cattelan, the internationally renowned Italian artist whose works have been exhibited in major museums and exhibitions worldwide, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Fondation Beyeler in Basel. His collaborations with Toiletpaper magazine and brands such as Kenzo, Mottley Berluti, Longchamp, and Seletti demonstrate his ability to blend high art with popular culture. Known for his wit, conceptual precision, and talent for orchestrating highly controlled social chaos, Cattelan conceived the gala not as a dinner, but as a social script to be disrupted. The choice of location was crucial: a hotel, with all its intrinsic codes of intimacy, fantasy, privacy, and performance. For the first two hours, guests were asked to enter and move about in complete silence, communicating only through notepads distributed upon arrival. Without a seated dinner, without table chatter, and without the conventional social choreography, the evening broke with the expected script of a charity event. Guests moved through a sequence of rooms animated by artistic interventions, writing, gesturing, miscommunicating, and lingering. What might have seemed austere on paper proved, in practice, unexpectedly playful, entertaining, and attentive.
Food and drinks circulated through the hotel as a parallel performance, while Franciacorta was poured from bottles chilled in retro bathtubs because if you are going to occupy a hotel with Maurizio Cattelan, you might as well use the plumbing.
From Mille Miglia to Emmy Awards, from Porsche Carrera Cup Italia to Michelin Guide (in Italy and the United States), from Milan Fashion Week to the Rome Film Festival, the events in Milan and Chicago confirm the strategy of the Franciacorta Consortium to be present on the most prestigious stages outside the wine world, presenting itself not only as a wine excellence but as a territory of vision, where nature, time, and human labor intertwine to generate cultural value.