Draw by Nuccio Garilli

My name is Andreino Cocco, and I was born on April 23, 1956, at 2:30 PM in Cassola. My mother was Teresa Scapin, and my father, Andrea Cocco, was a partisan during the Resistance, known by the nickname “Bill.” He served as the deputy commander of Masaccio in the Monte Grappa area. After the war, he became a trader of raw materials such as cotton, iron, plastic, and jute. As a child, I often spent time in my father’s warehouses, surrounded by all kinds of materials: bales of cotton, clothes, shoes, and colorful fabric scraps. For me, those piles of objects were like artistic installations. Today, they remind me of Arte Povera works, but back then, they evoked far darker images, such as the Nazi concentration camps, which profoundly influenced my imagination and future creative path. At the age of fifteen, with the support of my family and my growing artistic vocation, I enrolled at the Fanoli Art Institute in Cittadella. I remember the first year was disastrous, but then, for some reason, I started to take an interest and pursued a personal exploration, outside the school’s frameworks. Painting and photography, especially in the lab, became my passions. During that time, I befriended a local ceramist, Mario Chiminazzo, from Cassola. He told me that with an art institute diploma, I could enroll at the Venice Academy, being in my final year. So, the next day, I found myself on the Academy Bridge, ready to inquire. With a diploma and a revenue stamp, I signed up for the painting course. The secretary asked me a few questions about my course preferences. I didn’t have specific ideas; just being at the Academy was enough for me. I was assigned to Emilio Vedova’s class by default. In November, I showed up at the Academy, taking the 5:30 AM train from Cassola. At the first stop, Castelfranco Veneto, hundreds of workers bound for Marghera boarded the train. That was when I began to understand what it meant to be a commuter. I remember my first day at the Academy: I was told the classrooms were immediately to the left. I started to settle in, but someone informed me that Vedova’s classroom was further down. I quickly switched rooms, where I met a kind lady with white hair. She asked me who I was. “Andreino,” I replied, and she smiled. “Last name, Cocco?” Another smile. She welcomed me and noted my presence in a notebook. That was the end of the first day, a Monday. Then followed anatomy, art history, engraving, but the most important part was painting. My meeting with Emilio Vedova was unexpected. Coming from the art institute, I brought my Nikon 24x36 camera but lacked paints and brushes. Vedova noticed me immediately; for him, photography was painting. He asked me to prepare a light table to practice in the classroom. During the first month, we formed a work group to renovate the classroom, building a structure with scaffolding pipes and wooden planks. In class were Lorenzo Gatti, Antonella Zambon, Francesco Fantini, and others. I documented the entire process of constructing Vedova’s classroom. From the very first year, a group called “Laboratory” explored the study of Guernica. Vedova brought me a box of X-ray plates to create collages and contact prints. The following year, the workgroup solidified, and we gained experiences outside the Academy, setting up educational exhibitions in places such as Modigliana with Alberti for Spain, Palazzo Corner in Venice, Trajan’s Forum in Rome, and Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. From the end of the first year onward, the maestro would take me in the afternoons to his studio at the Salt Warehouses. Lorenzo Gatti also frequented Vedova’s studio. Occasionally, the group took us to trattorias with visitors like Achille Bonito Oliva, Farina, and Angelo Schwarz. During my four years at the Academy, I developed installations and painting interventions on abandoned farmhouses, low-down televisions, and electronic shots on TV screens. In 1978, I created an installation during a concert by "Frigidere Tango" in the old body shop of a farmhouse. I exhibited at the "Il Fiore" gallery with Mario Chiminazzo in Bassano, presented by Umbro Apollonio. In 1979, we held a conceptual art exhibition in Castelfranco Veneto with Gatti and Gheroldi. After the exhibition, Vedova wanted to present it again in Venice at the Bevilacqua La Masa Opera in Piazza San Marco, Palazzo Corner. One day at the Academy, a boy entered and started playing a piece on a harmonica. Struck, I asked him where I could find one. He told me there was a music store in Campo San Barnaba. Without hesitation, I bought a “Special 20” in C for 5,500 lire, not even knowing what “C” meant. A few days later, at Piazza dei Signori in Bassano del Grappa, a fellow townsperson, Tiziano Siviero (rally co-driver), played a cassette of John Mayall’s Room to Move. It was in the right key, and when I put my mouth to the harmonica, the notes drawn and blown were perfect. That was a lucky coincidence; otherwise, who knows how it would have gone. Two months later, Room to Move was mine, at least the riff... In the summer of 1979, I worked for my uncle Renzo Bragagnolo in Rossano Veneto, a coffin maker. I handled welding zinc lids, which was fun because I could take liberties as he was my uncle. So, I would occasionally slip away to practice. A young worker who taught me welding listened to me and said, “I know someone in Cittadella who plays things similar to yours.” “Really? Introduce me!” One Sunday morning, he brought to my house a guy with a bush of black hair, a mustache, a white raincoat, and a guitar: Raffaele Bisson. We started with Room to Move, and then he said, “There’s also blues and its keys.” So, I got myself harmonicas in A, D, C, and F. That was my arsenal for the time being. The following Tuesday, I was in Cittadella, at a public housing outside Porta Vicenza. I rang the bell, and Bisson was waiting for me. We went into his office-living room. He opened the wardrobe, revealing the speaker system. He put on Sonny Terry. A bolt struck me. Junior Wells, another bolt. Sonny Boy 1 and 2, another bolt. Walter Horton, Little Walter, Muddy, Cotton, Prior. It took me two weeks to recover from this new world. I am infinitely grateful to Bisson for his musical culture; the duo Cocco and Bisson was born this way. Even the name sounded good, in honor of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and it would remain our brand over time. In the 1980s, I left for military service, where I practiced all day. This happened from the first day I had a harmonica (and still does today). Subscribing to the magazine Il Blues, Marino Grandi took us to heart and invited us to the first blues festival in Milan, issue 8 of Il Blues. Gianfranco Skala was also one of our most important supporters. In Veneto, in Bassano del Grappa, there was the “Dollaro” disco (Shindy), and later the “800” brewery. The "Sonny Boy" in Conegliano Veneto and “Musica Viva” in Crespano del Grappa also regularly hosted blues events, including "Avventino Blues." Later, I had a psychedelic experience with “The Vindicator” in 1986, a band from Bassano led by Carlo Casale. After two LPs, just before a concert where we were supposed to open for the "Blues Brothers" in Feltre, I had a spontaneous pneumothorax that sidelined me for about ten years. Between 1994 and 2000, I played on Sundays and at religious gatherings for Protestant pastors in Bologna. However, painting always remained present: in 2001, I exhibited at the "Chiesetta dell'Angelo" in Bassano del Grappa, a solo show curated by Flavia Casagrande, Volo senza ali. I resumed playing with Bisson in 2001 at the "Delta Blues" in Rovigo, and we immediately recorded No Compromise, then in 2004, Break Down. Also in the winter of 2004, I met Little Paul Venturi at the "Fattoria" in Bologna, at concerts organized by Zaf and Saverio. Paolo asked me to play a piece with him; we played together for six years, blending Delta Blues and Roots Way Blues at "Blues Rapperswil," among others. Angelo Lead Belly Rossi, Roberto Menabo, and Giorgio Cavalli were also my traveling companions. In the 2000s, I had a studio at 48 Saragozza Street in Bologna, where I created many of my works. I met Silvano Chinni, a painter who introduced me to Vladimiro Zocca, who invited me to various exhibitions in Bologna. Giuseppe D'Agata and I collaborated from 2007 to 2010 on Piega e Arrotola at the Istituto Pari in Bologna. Since 2001, I have explored painting and extrapainting, experimenting with techniques like plexiglass and jute. From 2010 to 2015, I focused on "Blues Painting." In 2016, I undertook "Painting on the Road," exhibiting large canvases in various cities: Rome, Milan, Trento, Bergamo, Cirò Marina (Ionian Sea), Genoa, etc. In 2022, I started working with acrylic kitchen paint and continued with "Blues Painting" in 2024. In 2017, I created Patatrac and in 2022, ArmonicaDance.

ART by COCCO