Julia Rometti and Victor Costales are the winners of the Premio illy for SustainArt at ARCOMadrid_ 2013

Madrid, February 15th 2013 – The artists who won the sixth edition of the  illy SustainArt Prize are the French Julia Rometti and the Ecuadorean Victor Costales with their work El Anarquismo Màgico, presented in the section Solo Projects: Focus Latinoamerica. They have been awarded today afternoon at ARCOMadrid_2013, in the illy SustainArt space, by the fair director Carlos Urroz and Carlo Bach, illycaffè art director.

The winners have been selected by an international jury, made of João Fernandes, Assistant Director of Conservation, Research and Dissemination of the National Art Center Museum Reina Sofia; Jesús Carrillo, Head of the Cultural Programs Department of Public Activities at the National Museum Art Center Reina Sofia; and Carlo Bach, illycaffè art director.

The artists have been awarded with a recognition of 15.000 euros. Moreover they will have the possibility to develop the project for the new illy art collection, the famous coffee cups designed by contemporary artists.

The jury has truly appreciated the work of vivid anthropologic telling accomplished by this couple of nomads, whose starting point was the meeting of an anarchist expatriated in the Bolivian jungle and a community of half-nomads Amazonian natives. The work has been finished thank to two opposite points of view: Julia’s rational vision and Victor’s emotional vision. They both give a special tension to these small pieces of anthropologic telling.

“El Anarquismo Mágico does not speak of this encounter. It is rather a field of energy, born out of the of our differences, and it works as a centrifugal force, a force that we have used to think and to develop our art practice” - Julia Rometti and Victor Costales said.

Julia Rometti (1975) and  Victor Costales (1974) have been working together since 2007. They are halfway between self-taught archaeologists and eccentric tourists, always on a journey. Rometti and Costales are committed to a wide research and in order to accomplish it they travel in deserts, forests, gardens, highways, and they venture on the wide land of knowledge, from literature to history, to some branches of the scientific thinking.

21 galleries in the Solo Projects: Focus Latin America section participated to the illy SustainArt Prize with their artists:Valenzuela Klenner, Michel Rein, Kurimanzutto, Henrique Faria Fine Art, Die Ecke Arte Contemporáneo, Nusser & Baumgart, Wu Galería, Jousse Entreprise, Arróniz, Wien Lukatsch, Proyectos Monclova, Isabel Hurley, Oscar Cruz, Magnan Metz Gallery, 80M2 Livia Benavides, Emma Thomas Galería, Bendana i Pinel, Galeria Afa, Waterside Projects, Sim Galeria, Roberto Paradise.

illy SustainArt
The illy SustainArt Prize was established in 2008 in Madrid at ARCO, and at the first edition was awarded to the Brazilian young artist Matheus Rocha Pitta. At the second edition, in 2009, the award went to Avinash Veeraraghavan, young winner among the emerging talents of India; in 2010 to the Mexican artist Camilo Ontiveros, in 2011 to the Brazilian Andre Komatsu and in 2012 to the Chilean Völuspá Jarpa.

The illy Prize awarded at ARCOmadrid is part of the illy SustainArt project, established in 2007 with the goal of deepening the scale of illycaffè action in contemporary art and of expanding to the international art community its approach to the sustainable growth. The project core is the site www.illysustainArt.org, a showcase open to the world of contemporary art that is to become a  meeting platform and the cultural place of reference for the exchanges of artists and curators coming from the emerging countries. On the website  they will have a chance to show their works to a panel of well know art experts at global level, such as Meskerem Assegued, Carlo Bach, Carlos Basualdo, Suman Gopinath, Gerardo Mosquera, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mariangela Mendez Prencke, and Angela Vettese.

Based in Trieste, Italy, illycaffè produces and markets a unique blend of espresso coffee under a single brand leader in quality. Over 6 million cups of illy espresso coffee are enjoyed every day. illy is sold in over 140 countries around the world and is available in more than 100,000 of the best restaurants and coffee bars. espressamente illy, the chain of franchised Italian-style coffee bars is now present in more than 30 countries and comprises 230 outlets. With the aim of spreading the coffee culture, illy has founded the Università del caffè, the centre of excellence offering theoretical and practical training on every aspect of coffee for coffee growers, coffee shops staff and enthusiasts. On a global level illycaffè employs about 800 people and has a consolidated turnover of €342 million. (2011 results)
illy buys green coffee directly from the growers of the highest quality Arabica through partnerships based on the mutual creation of value. The Trieste-based company fosters long-term collaborations with the world's best coffee growers - in Brazil, Central America, India, Africa and China - providing know-how and technology and offering above-market prices.

For more information:
Anna Adriani/Christine Pascolo, illycaffè, Ph. +39 040/3890111