Video artist and painter Mario Sasso dies at 88

Mario Sasso, a pioneering Italian video artist and painter, died in Rome on October 4, 2023, at age 88. Born in Staffolo in 1934, he was best known for creating iconic TV graphics for Rai, including the first 3D logos for TG2 and TG3 (the latter with music by Brian Eno), and for programs like 'Non è mai troppo tardi' and 'La notte della Repubblica'. His artistic work won him the Nika d'Oro at the Linz Festival of Electronic Arts in 1990 (first Italians to receive it) for the video 'Footprint', which also inaugurated Rai's satellite broadcasts. He also won a Guggenheim prize for 'Torre delle trilogie', participated in the 1986 Venice Biennale video section and the Rome Quadriennale, and was named Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President Giorgio Napolitano. A retrospective was held at the Macro Museum in Rome in February 2019. His last exhibition runs from October 21 to November 25 at PoliArt gallery in Milan. Sasso explored digital painting from the 1980s, using Quantel's Paintbox for 'Gioconda al Paintbox' (1986), and later printed his works on canvas and PVC. He saw digital as a pictorial language that transcended abstraction-figuration dualism. His urban-themed works anticipated graffiti art.