Photos by Nicola Corona and self-portraits

On via Clavature, in Bologna, stood a squatted building renamed Traumfabrik (“Dream Factory”). The members of the band Centro d’Urlo Metropolitano (later Gaznevada) had taken up residence there together with the comic artist Filippo Scozzari. Andrea was a regular at the squat and proclaimed himself a member, while continuing to live on via Emilia Ponente.

Recalls Nicola Corona: “I met Andrea with Betta, at the Traumfabrik, on acid (him; I was “normal”), and right away there was a crazy mental connection, like I’d never had with anyone. For me he was already an absolute legend of drawing, of image, of color, and there, at the Traum, I was meeting my legend. But precisely because he was Andrea, everything went beyond and further, and he was ‘just’ a fantastic friend, generous like few others. Too many memories: the trips in his Alfa 33 together through the hills, or the evenings and nights on via Emilia Ponente, often watching him finish a story for Frigo or Linus the night before the deadline.
So, shortly after meeting him, I invited him, with Freak – whose grandmother lived not far from my mom’s house – to my new home, at the legendary via Clavature 20. On the top floor, with the Traum on the second. The photos came about like that, by chance, with my Olympus. Even the idea of Saint Sebastian with Caran d’Ache pencils as arrows”.