The book documents two collections designed by Andrea Branzi between 2020 and 2022 for Simone Begani and Short Stories: Legni domestici and Marmi caldi. The two collections are photographed in Palazzo Capponi alle Rovinate in Florence: in its historical archive, in the gallery of sculptures, next to the Madonna with Child by Pontormo located in the small chapel on the piano nobile, and in the rooms now used by the Breyer Center for Overseas Studies, Stanford University. The Legni domestici placed in the monumental spaces conjure up the persistent presence of hybrid mineral, vegetal, and animal creatures in our houses, often with human features. Next to the Madonna with Child by Pontormo, the Marmi caldi generate flowers, to celebrate miraculous births and maternities. But overall it is the silent and immobile context that comes alive, vibrates and is reborn. Alongside the images that illustrate this unprecedented combination, the book includes other several and different contributions: the presentation of the two collections by Lapo Binazzi, drawings and writings by Andrea Branzi, texts by Niccolò Capponi and Carlo Falciani.

Andrea Branzi, Legni domestici / Marmi caldi, Rose Edition, Firenze 2023, 84 pages
Texts (ita/eng): Andrea Branzi, Lapo Binazzi, Niccolò Capponi and Carlo Falciani
Photographs: Dario Borruto
Graphic design: SMV
Translation: Erika Geraldine Young
ISBN: 9788894704051

Stati d’animo is the first monographic study of Giorgio Ferrero, a sophisticated interpreter of Italian informal abstraction. Ferrero challenges standard positioning within a national cultural scene, mixing genres and interests between Italian sensitivities, a fascination for American action painting, the CO.BR.A Group, and the Asian cultures. Since his early death in 1975, his activity as a painter and ceramist has been poorly documented. It was, above all, the tales of his pupils and those of his friends that kept his memory alive. His most widely known friends include Betty Woodman — who began working with ceramics in Ferrero’s studio in Fiesole after the Second World War — and Lara-Vinca Masini– who was one of the first art critics to present Ferrero’s works to the public. This book illustrates sixty works on paper, a selection of paintings, and ceramics from the 1960s. The texts include a piece by Lara-Vinca Masini from 1962, an interview given by Lara-Vinca Masini to Simone Begani in 2019, a biographical profile of the artist, and a critical essay by Mirella Branca.

Giorgio Ferrero, Stati d’animo, CentroDi, Firenze 2022, 190 pages
Texts (ita/eng): Mirella Branca and Lara-Vinca Masini
Photographs: Dario Borruto
Graphic design: Giada Marson and Giulia Pastore
Translation: Erika Geraldine Young
ISBN: 9788870385762

The book documents the furnishings designed by Lapo Binazzi between the late 1970s and early 1980s for a dental office in Florence: a series of large colored wardrobes in the shape of facades with ironic references to classical architecture, alongside desks, trolleys, shelves, benches with teeth, and coat hangers in the shape of burning trees. All the furnishings have been handcrafted in lacquered wood or covered in Abet laminate. The articulated medical space is thus transformed into a playful and eclectic world, one, as Lapo Binazzi describes it, full of symbols capable of “demystifying the rhetoric of ‘good design’ of the 1960s and its somewhat arrogant industrial certainties.” In addition to archive photos and technical drawings of the furnishings, the book includes a critical essay by Alessandra Acocella and an interview with Binazzi who, retracing the history of the project, discusses key themes of his singular research.

Alessandra Acocella / Lapo Binazzi, Dis-continuità, Yogurmak, Firenze 2023, 58 pages
Texts (ita/eng): Alessandra Acocella and Lapo Binazzi
Photographs: Archivio Lapo Binazzi – Casa d’Aste Pandolfini – IndustrialFoto
Graphic design: RovaiWeber
Translation: Maria Luisa Matino
ISBN: 9791221032970