Mario Schifano

(1934 - 1998)

One of the greatest Italian painters of the post-war era, who achieved international acclaim in the 1960s and 1970s as an exponent of another possible pop art, Schifano has left behind a boundless body of work. After a decisive trip to the United States in 1963, he began to make short 16mm films, nearly always "edited in the camera", including Round Trip 1964 and Anna Carini in agosto vista dalle farfalle 1967. He then made a trilogy of feature-length films – Satellite 1968, Umano non umano / Human, Inhuman 1969 and Trapianto, consunzione e morte di Franco Brocani 1969 – which are anomalous from the circles of experimental and art cinema in Rome, of which he was never a part. He therefore represents an original, eclectic, autonomous voice.