MADRID – Sergio Zevallos, artist participating in the #SoloProjects section with the gallery 80m2 Livia Benavides, was proclaimed winner of the eighth edition of the illy SustainArt Prize this afternoon at ARCO 2015 for his work Callejón Oscuro, awarded with € 15,000 by illycaffè.
The jury, formed by Cuauhtémoc Medina, chief curator at MUAC University Museum of Contemporary Art-UNAM at Mexico DF; João Fernandes, Deputy Director of Conservation, Research and Dissemination of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Carlo Bach, art director of illycaffè, have highlighted the work of Zevallos his willingness to put on stage and to debate about a set of lifestyles and sexual identities that have been expelled from the public, persecuted and ridiculed.
His work is a response to the conflict situation experienced in Peru in the eighties, a reading of the social, urban, space and body control, pointing to a Queer body as a matter of zoning for the way that unites the storytelling and conceptual plot with a practice of self-representation.
Zevallos began his career in Peru in the eighties working in the parallel circuits of the official art spaces. His visibility as an artist has always been limited and therefore the illy SustainArt Award is an important recognition for his work.
In this eighth edition of illy Sustain Art Prize at ARCO, and the fourth dedicated to the #SoloProjects program, the work of Zevallos is part of one of the subject areas represented this year in this section, the one referring to Performativity of gender and research practices in Latin America.
The illy SustainArt Prize aims to provide visibility and networking opportunities in www.illySustainArt.org online platform 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 ARCOmadrid Award 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 in India.
The 2010 recognized the Mexican artist Camilo Ontiveros, and in 2011, back to a Brazilian artist, the young André Komatsu.
In 2012, the award went to Chilean artist Voluspa Jarpa; in 2013 was the artist couple Julia Rometti & Victor Costales who received the award for his book “Anarchism Magic” and in its latest edition the award recognized the Argentine artist Diego Bruno for his work “Location”.
