Fondazione Ermanno Casoli is pleased to announce that Francesco Barocco is the winner of the XII edition of the Ermanno Casoli Contemporary Art Award.
Dedicated to the memory of Ermanno Casoli, founder of Elica and great art lover, the Award was established in 1998. Since 2007 however, with the birth of Fondazione Ermanno Casoli and Marcello Smarrelli’s artistic direction, the Award has taken on a new significance.
With the Award the Fondazione not only contributes to the diffusion of contemporary art in Fabriano, standing out as a cultural centre in the Marche territory, but also pursues one of its primary objectives: to establish an interaction between contemporary art and industry, creating occasions of dialogue and collaboration between these two worlds.
The Award offers the winning artist the possibility of realizing a project in an industrial context, with the participation of a group of workers that wish to undergo a training experience of this sort.

Francesco Barocco will spend a period of time in Fabriano, and with about twenty Elica workers from all the company’s departments including the factories, he will develop a program focusing on engraving. His will be a work in progress developing into a series of phases, both practical and theoretical, that will then lead to a final exhibition of his especially realized artworks in the central premises of Elica in Fabriano.