[Leica] Taking up the cudgels for Francesco Illy

[chs2018 at med.cornell.edu (Chris Saganich)]

Didier
I am happy to receive this kind of inside perspective.  It does make a big 
difference to me and I appreciate you taking the time to address my 
concerns.  I can only imagine the juggling act one must undertake to 
support a bottom line while managing the social and political issues with a 
conscience.   I agree the world could use  more patrons like this and it is 
sad that trying to "take care of your employees" is considered an "old 
fashioned" way of conducting business.  In the end even this becomes PR.
Chris


At 06:08 PM 9/29/2006, you wrote:
>Chris
>
>I can anser you - yes it is right. I will tell you why.
>
>Francesco Illy, member of the italian Illy coffee dynasty and co-CEO of 
>the company, and btw a passionate and brillant amateur photographer, has 
>been sponsoring Salgado since many years. He is a big fan of him and 
>promoted him already in his beginnings. Seen in this context, it is 
>understandable you met Salgado prints in connection with Illy coffee 
>promotion actions.
>
>I happen to work for Francesco Illy, or better said, for one of his 
>companies, Amici Caff? Switzerland. I have recently redesigned the 
>Illy/Amici website, see http://www.amici.ch (the Illy family sold the 
>rights for their Illy brand for Switzerland 30 years ago that's why 
>their  coffee is called Amici here). Mister Illy is that kind of 
>old-fashioned patriarchal company leader, who is taking care of his 
>employees like they would be his kids. He's not the kind of MBA bean 
>counters that buy modern art just because it's fashionable. He is 
>interested in photography because he's himself keeping that button pushed, 
>too, on his Hassies.
>
>Most of the pictures on the Amici website were shot by Mister Illy 
>himself. I had to take out all the Salgado pictures of the old website 
>because they had been used too much & too long (but they're brillant, I 
>can tell, I have all of them as 40 MB greyscale Tiffs on my harddiscs).
>
>To come back on Illy sponsoring Salgado, it is more than only a usual 
>commercial thing. There's a relationship between F. Illy and Salgado. If 
>you have the luck to know Mr. Illy and his passion for traditional b&w 
>photography, you must say it's good there are some patrons left like him. 
>There should be more of them.
>
>And as Simone Tiraboschi posted earlier, Illy is one of the very rare 
>coffee companies that trades in a fair and sustainable coffee market, 
>decades before Max Havelaar "invented" the fair trade. As artist I would 
>not hesitate to be sponsored by such a company. It's a great luck, and I 
>guess Salgado's appreciating it.
>
>Didier
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> >So I happened to be wondering through the Time-Warner mall at Columbus 
> Circle last week when I spied a lot of giant Salgado prints on display, 
> (he once used a Leica).  On each image there was a small caption about 
> the image and a plug for Illy, which I had never heard of before.  I 
> assumed Illy was some group sponsoring the exhibit.  At the conclusion of 
> the exhibit there was a coffee bar, an Illy coffee bar.  I was unhappy to 
> realize the whole thing was a PR campaign.  Now the question shot into my 
> mind...is this right?  I looked around at the mall and the shops and all 
> the people sipping the Illy coffee and then at the Salgado prints again 
> and the prints became reduced to corporate PR and I was angry.  Flame me 
> all you want but I realized two things - consumption has replaced 
> democracy, and the image is the driving force behind consumption.  It's 
> all so rude.
> >
> >Chris Saganich - not happy with the world these days.
>
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