Lapo Binazzi

Lapo Binazzi (b. 1943, Florence) is a visionary designer and a founding member of the UFO collective, one of the “supergroups” of Italian architects and designers in the late 1960s who banded together to express their utopian and political manifestos through their provocative works. Encompassing interior and industrial design, fashion, film and performance art, Binazzi’s work exists in a space between conceptual and pop art. Binazzi defined this genre as “Discontinuity.”

Binazzi’s projects, which were celebrated on the covers of Domus magazine and exhibited as stage sets at numerous fairs as well as in restaurant and disco interiors, incorporated props such as giant hunks of foam cheddar cheese and magic toadstools, with inflatables, human performers and temporary design installations and interventions. His highly sought after lighting — such as the Dollaro, MGM and Paramount table lamps and the Pinocchio floor lamp — cleverly re-appropriated cultural iconography as a commentary on culture and commercialism.

With UFO, his work was widely exhibited internationally, notably at the Milan Triennales in 1968 and1973, the Paris Biennale in 1971 and the Venice Biennale in 1978. Binazzi was also a member of the radical group Global Tools. His solo exhibitions include Documenta 8 in Kassel, Germany in 1987 and The House of Dolce Stil Novo in Florence in 1991.

Lapo Binazzi currently lives and works in Florence, Italy.