Teresa Iarocci Mavica

Teresa Iarocci Mavica studied political science at the Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples where she developed a keen interest in 'Sovietology': her thesis was dedicated to the juridical basis of the legal state project by Gorbachev. 

In 1989 she received a grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Russian Academy of Science to study at the Plekhanov Academy of Economics in Moscow, following which she began to work for a company that had signed one of the biggest contracts with the soviet government through which she established relationships with key members of the Government. Soviet society in 1989 was still somewhat difficult to penetrate, especially for foreigners, but Iarocci Mavica found that the artistic community offered a freedom and openess to which she became more and more attached.

In 2003, she ran the first Russian gallery to show Western art in Moscow. In 2009, she was invited by Leonid Mikhelson to set up and direct the V-A-C Foundation. 

Iarocci Mavica is a Member of the Tate's REEAC Committee (Russian and Eastern European Acquisition Committee) and has been a Member of the Supervisory Board of  Manifesta, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art, since 2016. 

V-A-C Foundation is a non-profit private institution founded in Moscow in 2009. Under the Directorship of Teresa Iarocci Mavica, the foundation focuses on contemporary art and cultural practice with the aim of providing a platform for creativity in the wider sense of the word. V-A-C strives to be actively engaged in artistic production, rather than the patronage or sponsorship of ongoing artistic processes and is deeply committed to the growing importance of art made in Russia as well as the new generations of artists from around the world. V-A-C has an exhibition and education space in Venice, Palazzo delle Zattere, and will launch a major new art site, GES-2, in Moscow in 2019.