Alessandro Kokocinski

Alessandro Kokocinski (born Alejandro Kokocinski; 3 April 1948 – 12 December 2017) was an Italian-Argentine painter, sculptor and set designer, of Polish-Russian origin.

Early life Born in the refugee camp at Porto Recanati, to a mother who had escaped Nazi deportation and a father who had fought with the Anglo-Polish forces, in late 1948 he and his family moved to South America. He designed the sets for “El Guapo del Novecento”. After being filed on police record by the military regime, he was forced to take refuge in Santiago de Chile. He settled in Rome and became a pupil of Riccardo Tomassi Ferroni, with whom he shared a studio in Trastevere, together with Carlo Quattrucci.

In 1986 he moved to the Far East and lived there for a few years, travelling between South East Asia and China. In 2003 he moved to Tuscania (Lazio), where he moved his studio into an ancient, deconsecrated church. He set up the Fondazione Alessandro Kokocinski in the town, an organization aimed at supporting the creativity of young artists (from Italy and all over the world), through training and specialization courses, residential training programmes and exhibitions and events.

In 2016 Kokocinski created the set design and lighting design for Lina Sastri è il mio nome, a musical theatrical show which opened on 4 October 2016 at the Teatro Quirino, Rome. Neapolitan actress and singer Sastri spoke to Il Messaggero newspaper about the "prolific imagination of Alessandro Kokocinski, a truly internationally-renowned painter who observes the world through the eyes of the heart”. She said she “hope the audience appreciates his visually dramatic touch, with which I fully identify".

Selected exhibitions

Kokocinski staged his second solo show in Buenos Aires in 1969. These works mainly focused on images from the circus tradition, with acrobats and dancers moving across canvases, accompanied by impetuously leaping horses.

In 1999, in Rome, three exhibitions running almost simultaneously at the Istituto Italo-latinoamericano, Palazzo della Pigna and the Galleria Italarte celebrated Kokocinski as a "world pilgrim". and painted using superimpositions and faded colours/elements of pain to accentuate their dramatic impact.

In 2005 Kokocinski had an exhibition at the Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant' Angelo, Rome, with a sculpture cycle, "L'Ombra delle idee" ("The Shadow of Ideas"), inspired by the philosopher Giordano Bruno. In the same year, he took part in a group show curated by Vittorio Sgarbi entitled "Il Male – Esercizi di Pittura crudele" ("Evil – Exercises in Cruel Painting") at the Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi, in Turin, Italy.

One of the artist's major achievements has been the solo show in 2006 in Beijing, at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), as part of the events held to celebrate the 'Year of Italy in China'.

In 2008, at the Regia Hall in the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia, Kokocinski presented "La Potenza dello Spirito", a painting cycle inspired by classicism and myths.

Kokocinski was one of the most popular artists in the group exhibition "Las Americas latinas. Las fatigas del querer" curated by art critic Philippe Daverio in 2009 at the Spazio Oberdan, Milan.

In 2011 Kokocinski was one of the artists chosen to exhibit at the 54th Venice Art Biennale, selected by Vittorio Sgarbi, who curated the Italian Pavilion at the Arsenale.

In Milan, in 2013, the Artespressione gallery presented a series of Kokocinski's drawings, made using mixed media on books and antique paper. The theme was the circus, that magical and mysterious environment in which the artist lived and worked when living in Buenos Aires as a young man.

In September 2015 the Fondazione Roma Museo staged a one-man show on the artist at Palazzo Cipolla, called ''"Kokocinski.

Death Kokocinski died on the morning of 12 December 2017 in Tuscania, Italy, at the age of 69 after suffering from a long illness.

Gallery