illycaffè announces the eight edition of the illy SustainArt prize at ARCOmadrid2015

The curatorial team of #SoloProjects program selects three finalists artists for the illy Sustain Art Award.
The winner will be announced at the Fair, to be held from February 25 to March 1.

Madrid 15th of January 2015 - The projects of artists Angel and Fernando Poyón -Galería T20-; Lenora de Barros -  Galeria Millan - and Sergio Zevallos -Galería 80m2 Livia Benavides- are the finalists of the illy Sustain Art Prize, the award that recognizes the work of a participating artist in ARCOmadrid #SoloProjects section with 15,000 euros and a participation in www.illySustainArt.org online diffusion platform.

The directors of the Solo Projects section Irene Hofmann and Lucía Sanromán and its curators, Miguel A. López, Kiki Mazzucchelli and Emiliano Valdés argue their selection commenting that “from the many talented artists in the Solo Project section this year, the curatorial team made a selection of three Finalists for the Illy Prize that each express a particularly bold, experimental, and boundary-pushing artistic practice. Our Finalists represent two generations of artists working in a range of media. We wish to recognize and encourage the work of each of them through this nomination”.

The Prize will be delivered on the 26th of February at 5pm in the illy Sustain Art space (7H09 -Hall 7), with the presence of Carlos Urroz, director of ARCO. Jurors will be Cuauhtémoc Medina from MUAC  México, João Fernandez, Assistant Director of Conservation, Research and Dissemination of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Carlo Bach, director of artistic illycaffè.

illycaffè celebrates this year the eighth edition of illy Sustain Art Prize at ARCO and the fourth dedicated to  #Solo Projects section, which this year will be held on three themes focusing on key ideas and areas of research and artistic production in current Latin America contemporary art: Rethinking the formalism: abstraction and vernacular sources, Legacy of Latin American avant-garde, and Performativity of gender and research practices in Latin America. The three selected artists to participate in the illy Sustain Art Prize represents each category respectively.

The illy SustainArt Prize aims to provide visibility and networking opportunities in the online platform www.illySustainArt.org and recognize the winning artist with a cash prize of 15,000 Euros. The award was created with the aim of spreading the company's approach to sustainable growth in the international art community, offering opportunities for visibility in the marketplace and exchange of artists from emerging countries.
The illy SustainArt Prize at ARCO was established in 2008 recognizing in its first edition the young Brazilian artist Matheus Rocha Pitta. In its second edition, in 2009, the prize was awarded to Avinash Veeraraghavan, one of the emerging young talent from India. The 2010 edition recognized the Mexican artist Camilo Ontiveros, and in 2011 back to a Brazilian artist, the young Andre Komatsu. In 2012 the award went to the Chilean artist Völuspá Jarpa and in 2013 was the artist couple Julia Rometti & Victor Costales who received the award. In its latest edition the award recognized the Argentine artist Diego Bruno for his work "Location".


illy SustainArt
The SustainArt illy Prize was founded in 2007 with the aim of deepening the dimension of illycaffè’s actions in the world of contemporary art and expand to the international art community, the company’s approach to sustainable business growth. The core of the project is the digital platform www.illysustainArt.org, open to the world of contemporary art that wants to become a cultural meeting point of reference for the exchange of artists and curators from emerging countries. In the digital platform, artists have the opportunity to show their work to a panel of art experts recognized internationally as Meskerem Assegued, Carlo Bach, Carlos Basualdo, Suman Gopinath, Gerardo Mosquera, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mariangela Mendez Prencke and Angela Vettese.

About illycaffè
illycaffè, with headquarters in Trieste, produces and markets a unique blend of espresso coffee and is the leading brand in the high-end segment of the coffee market. illycaffè is the official partner of Expo 2015 and it takes charge of the content project and management, the exhibitions and the events associated to coffee, in the Coffee Cluster common area. More than 6 million cups of illy espresso coffee are enjoyed every day. Sold in more than 140 countries around the world, illy is available in more than 100,000 of the world’s best restaurants and cafés. Espressamente illy, the Italian-style coffee franchising chain, is present with 230 outlets in more than 30 countries to date. To grow and spread the culture of coffee, the company has established Coffee University, a center of excellence that offers full training in all aspects of coffee theory and practice to growers, baristas and coffee lovers. Globally, the company employs around 1,050 people and, in 2013, recorded consolidated sales of € 373.9 million.
illycaffé buys green coffee directly from growers of the best Arabica through partnerships based on sustainable development. Working with the best growers in the world – in Brazil, Central America, India, Africa and China – the Trieste-based company develops long-term relationships that transfer know-how and technology to growers while paying above the market rate for their production.