illy SustainArt at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa: Adan Vallecillo is artist-in-residence

Trieste, May 22nd  – Adan Vallecillo (1977) was granted a three-month illy SustainArt residential period (10th September – 10th December 2013) at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. The panel, chaired by Michelangelo Pistoletto, artist and art director of Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto, included Angela Vettese, President of Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa (Italy), curators Meskerem Assegued (Ethiopia), Carlos Basualdo (Argentina), Suman Gopinath (India), Gerardo Mosquera (Cuba), Mariangela Mendez Prencke (Colombia), and Carlo Bach, art director at illycaffè. The panelists selected the Honduran artist’s work, which they thought deserved recognition among all the artists’ and curators’ works uploaded on the www.illysustainart.org website.

Adan Vallecillo was born in Danlì, El Paraiso, Honduras, in 1977.  After his studies at the National School of fine Arts in Tegucigalpa (1995), he attended the School of Visual Arts in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2000), and finally studied sociology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (2010). His career includes dozens of personal and collective exhibitions and workshops in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States.

“The outstanding quality of work presented on the platform this year made selecting only one candidate for the residency program a difficult choice for the panel - nonetheless, due to the strong empathetic nature of his work as well as its multi-layered power of communication complemented by an intrinsic need for aesthetics,  we are very pleased to announce Adan Vallecillo as the recipient of the residency program taking place this summer at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa.”  declared Carlo Bach, illycaffè SpA’s Art Director.

The residency involves a three-month course at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, where the selected artist/curator will have an opportunity to work in close contact with the other Foundation program’s recipients and take part with them in the many activities which are annually organized for the ateliers’ guests. A personal art studio will be put at his disposal in the Santissimi Cosma and Damiano complex on the Giudecca island (where five more have already been set up by the BLM Foundation). Frequent studio visits will be promoted by the Foundation, involving trade journalists, critics and curators, either independent or representing the foremost domestic and international institutions devoted to young artists, such as the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the Camden Arts Centre (London), the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin). The artist will have a chance to present his work to the general public, on the occasion of the Artists’ Talks, as well as the Open Studios days. For three months, he will be hosted in the Palazzo Carminati guest quarters, where he will live in close contact with the other young beneficiaries and profit from this environment, extremely rich in inspiration and personal relationships.

illy SustainArt
The illy SustainArt project was launched in 2007 with the purpose of extending illycaffè’s reach into contemporary art and spread its sustainable growth approach to the international art community. The www.illysustainArt.org website lies at the very center of the project. It acts as a window over contemporary art, and it aims at becoming a reference, a meeting point and a cultural exchange for artists and curators from emerging countries, who are given an opportunity to showcase their work to well-known global contemporary art experts: Meskerem Assegued, Carlo Bach, Carlos Basualdo, Suman Gopinath, Gerardo Mosquera, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mariangela Mendez Prencke, and Angela Vettese. Also in the same spirit, the company periodically recognizes emerging artists selected during key international events, including  Arco Madrid, SP-Arte in Sao Paulo and Art Rotterdam with the illy SustainArt Award.


illycaffè, based in Trieste, produces and markets a single blend of espresso coffee and is the leading brand in the high-quality coffee segment. Over 6 million cups of illy espresso coffee are consumed every day. illy is sold in over 140 countries worldwide and is available in more than 100,000 high quality bars and restaurants. espressamente illy, the chain of Italian style coffee in franchising, is currently present in 30 countries, with a total of over 230 stores. To achieve its goal of extending and spreading coffee culture, the company founded the Università del caffè, a center of excellence offering a full theoretical and practical course for coffee growers, baristas and all those who want to know more about coffee-related topics. At the global level, the company has approx. 800 employees and posted a consolidated turnover of 342 million euro in 2011.

illycaffè buys green coffee directly from the producers of the most prized Arabica coffee through partnerships based on sustainable development. The Trieste-based roaster is keen on developing long-term cooperation with the world’s best growers - in Brazil, Central America, India, Africa and China – sharing its body of knowledge and technological competences with them and paying them higher than market prices.

Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. The Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa was founded over a century ago by a generous and long-sighted woman, who anticipated the aims and current prerogatives of the Italian institutions now committed to enhance the visibility of emerging artists. At the end of her life, largely spent in support of the newly-united Italian people, Felicita Bevilacqua (1822-1899), widow to General Giuseppe La Masa, decided to bequeath the Ca' Pesaro palace to the City of Venice, on condition that it would be used to favor “young artists who are often denied access to prominent exhibitions”.


Over the past decade, 1,200 artists displayed their work at the BLM. 218 exhibitions were hosted and over 50 catalogues and hundreds of posters, invitations and brochures were printed.

Here are the three highlights of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa’s program:

- Exhibitions of living artists of international renown, in order to provide people in the area an essential opportunity to come into contact with great contemporary artists, while becoming part of the network of international exhibitions centers like Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Whitechapel Gallery, as well as artist residences like the Camdem Art Centre in London and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

- Activities with a focus on young artists. The annual collective exhibition, now in its 96th edition, the scholarships granted to the most promising young artists, the annual scholarship holders’ exhibition and the allocation of the 12 artist studios. Also: personal and collective young artists’ exhibitions in cooperation with universities, schools of fine arts, exhibition centers and other institutions, in Italy and abroad.

- Information and dissemination initiatives, such as the Young Artist Archives, created in partnership with the Viafarini center in Milan, and the Contemporary Art library. Moreover, many publications are edited by BLM, which also supervises the Institution’s historical archives. The Foundation organizes seminars, workshops, congresses and meetings with world-acclaimed artists, critics and theorists.

Since 2002, the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa has been presided over by Angela Vettese and managed by Elisabetta Meneghel.


For further information:
Anna Adriani/Christine Pascolo, illycaffè Trieste - Tel. +39 040 3890111
Alessandra Bettelli / Francesco Farabola, Cohn & Wolfe Milano – t.+39 02 20239374 / 326 - 346.7008540 alessandra.bettelli@cohnwolfe.com; francesco.farabola.ce@cohnwolfe.com

Press Office Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa
Giorgia Gallina, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, press@bevilacqualamasa.it; Tel. +39 0415207797