ART & DESIGN ON THE EDGE irony. If the Bauhaus led eventually to Ikea, the work of UFO, Superstudio and the other Radicals has had a less heralded legacy of its own. Their collaborations with betterknown designers like Ettore Sottsass bore fruit in the colourful postmodern 1980s furniture of the Memphis Group, for example. Snyderman sees echoes of the Radicals in the work of contemporary designers such as the LA–based Haas Brothers. The past few years have seen a revived interest in the Radicals, with notable exhibitions in London and Rome. Maria Cristina Didero is an independent curator who specialises in the period. She’s helping to organise a major Radical Design retrospective that R & Company has scheduled for next autumn (coinciding with a documentary film and a book from Monacelli Press). “Given the world’s current value vacuum, maybe when you look back at a movement that expressed itself in such an explosive, revolutionary way, there’s a certain fascination,” she says. Collectors have also begun to take an interest, attracted in part by the scarcity “WE WANTED TO OPERATE OUTSIDE THE LOGIC OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN” value of the Radicals’ small body of permanent domestic design work. In Binazzi’s case, these collectables include a famous series of lamps based on the insignias of Paramount (a volcano topped by a parasol), MGM and 20th Century Fox. There are several original pieces or prototypes in Binazzi’s cluttered studio: a severed-arm lamp that looks like a piece of Addams Family home decor; a wooden coat stand in the shape of a tree emitting lightning bolts (a recurring symbol). Artisanship has always been central to his practice. “It’s no coincidence that I opened a design studio in a street full of carpenters, metalworkers and other craft workshops,” he says. In some cases, as in the playful 1969 interiors for a Florence restaurant called Sherwood, UFO acted as builders, painters and installation artists. “People weren’t ready for the Radical revolution at the time,” Binazzi says with a wry smile. “We were on a railway siding watching the trains go by.” The New York survey of his work isn’t the only sign of finally being recognised. In 2015, an inflatable, life-size replica of Brunelleschi’s cathedral dome that Binazzi conceived in 1968 was finally produced (in a scaled-down version) and displayed by a Florentine art foundation. How does he feel about his radical designs becoming an investment for wealthy collectors? “I’m happy that my tenacity is being recognised,” he says. But he also notes that collection and preservation are not so far apart. When one of his original creations is returned to him before an auction or gallery show, he says, “It gives me the chance to repair and restore pieces that I would have defended with my life – if I’d been able to keep them.” SUPERDESIGN, a major retrospective of the Radical Design movement will be presented by R&Company Gallery in 2017 Binazzi’s UFO collective fashioned its 1969 Dollaro lamp, far left, after the 20th Century Fox logo using gilt metal and a marble base. The MGM lamp, left, produced circa 1973 in various colours of painted metal, replaces the iconic lion with a parasol. The series was conceived as a commentary on Hollywood’s depictions of the American Dream PHOTOS JOE KRAMM/R & COMPANY 80 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
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