illy sustainability art project

Titolo Link

Since 2007 illy SustainArt has been actively engaged in furthering the cause of contemporary art, which the House sees as a natural outgrowth of its corporate philosophy. The objective is in fact to raise general public awareness of crucial social and economic issues for the future by offering the international art community the opportunity of expressing itself on sustainable-development related topics by organising or participating in high-profile events. In particular, illy SustainArt is active in sponsoring and promoting the works of emerging artists from developing countries, especially coffee-growers, suppliers of the House's raw material.
One of the first actions undertaken by illy SustainArt was to set up its own pavilion in collaboration with the Italian-Latin American Institute, an international body responsible since 1972 for organising the participation of Latin American artists at the Biennale, so as to offer promising local artists a venue at the fifty-second edition of the Venice International Art Exhibition for showing their works and make themselves known to a wider international public.
In November 2007 illy SustainArt in collaboration with the Turin-based International Art Fair, Artissima, proposed to a number of the Fair’s curators, and namely Meskerem Assegued, Mariangela Mendez Prencke and Suman Gopinath, to undertake a joint project for organising the systematic promotion of art events and activities in and out of their countries of origin, especially with a view to discovering new talents.
This initial commitment was subsequently materialised in February 2008 at the International Contemporary Arts Fair, ARCO, in Madrid when the illy sustainArt award was officially presented, with the first edition dedicated to young Brazilian artists. The winner, chosen by an international panel of judges headed by Berta Sichel, director of the audiovisual department of the Reina Sofia Museum, was Matheus Rocha Pitta. In addition to the prize money, the winner was also given the opportunity of designing a series of espresso coffee cups for a future edition of the illy Art Collection.
The 2009 and second edition will be dedicated to young artistic talents from India. (see details)
In the course of 2008 another important project as part of illycaffè’s commitment to the arts has seen the light, namely the illy SustainArt online observatory (accessible at www.illysustainart.org) aimed at monitoring the contemporary international art scene and providing a visibility platform for young, upcoming artists, and even more an online social network dedicated to artists, art event organisers, dealers, critics, reviewers, and art lovers in general. In particular, the network intends narrowing geographical, cultural and economic gaps that are all too often an obstacle to art practitioners from emerging countries in their efforts to make themselves known and accessible to a wider public worldwide. Breaking down such barriers to knowledge and general appreciation as only the web can hope to do is the primary scope of this online initiative by illycaffè.