Christian Tedeschi work at the Telegraph Art Collective presented at the Oakland University Gallery showed an Eames plastic chair knockoff placed in front of a television playing all static, complete with a set of headphones resting in the middle of the chair.

The chair has been wrapped hundreds and hundreds of times in speaker wire, so that at first you don't realize it is seperated from the chair. The wire stretches off the chair and terminates at the headphones – which play the repetitive sounds of static displayed on the TV screen.  Check out more of his work here.

 Herman Miller-sponsored charity auction to raise money for the Peace House Foundation. Each of the eleven participating designers and design firms were given an Eames’ classic “potato chip chair” to modify.

PHF spokesperson Bari Trontz told AssociatedContent.com that "the $24,000 raised at this event will support the Peace House Foundation in their efforts to educate Tanzania's most vulnerable children. The success of the Herman Miller event," she added, "is a testament to the enormous compassion and generosity on behalf of the design community in New York."

One of the designers for Pentagram created a Pincushion chair that was inspired by a typeface she designed called Pincushion. “We wanted to think of the object as something soft that could be punctured, in this case, with large hatpins, giving it the feeling of a pincushion” she said. “In our expression, the chair becomes a purely visual, rather than a utilitarian object.”

Other participants included Ayse Birsel, David Rockwell,Maharam and Todd Oldham.  Celebrated designer Oldham's work received the highest bid-$3,000-of all the completed chair designs,an image is shown below.

I haven't been able to track down images of the other designs but will try and do so shortly.

Image Credits + Copyright: Herman Miller 

The Xlounge by American artist/designer Mark Wentzel.

The conceptual weight of a design and the consumption of American culture are the focus of "XLounge" by Mark Wentzel. Wentzel explores the masterful design of the Eames Lounge Chair and it's significance today.  His interest in the design revolves around the gap between the public's endearment for old products and it's commitment to increasingly transitory "cutting edge" products.  Wentzel believes this gap to be fertile ground for creative expression.  XLounge takes on the responsibilities of it's time of creation, as Wentzel states all works should, by relying on the ingeniousness of the sleek Eames Lounge Chair design while displaying the disproportionate consumption of Americans.

Xlounge was shown at Project 4 Gallery's (Washington DC) Useless exhibition.

The Washington Post interviewed Mark and asked him this question about his work.

Why is your chair obese?
"The piece is obviously about consumption. It gives the opportunity to a particular viewer to grab their stomach and say, "Wow. That's me." I felt that this Eames chair was a crucial part of American iconography -- I think it really resonates with a wide range of people. And the standard structure of the Eames lounger was conducive to expanding its upholstery. I thought of using a La-Z-Boy. But you can't easily make a La-Z-Boy any fatter than it is. You can just make it bigger."

Disrespectful or a piece of art?

Maarten Bass a dutch artist would like you to think the latter.

His exhibit "Where There's Smoke" for Moss
where they state "Bass re-sculpts these design icons with flame, careful to preserve their structural integrity and thereby their original functionality. Their authorship and identity altered, they become revisionist, highly personal, audacious expressions of the artist."

Baas stamps each one with his own name after he is finished.

"Why do we want to have the same expression of beauty?" he is quoted as saying in a Washington Post article

Baas launched himself as a blowtorch designer with a graduation project at the Design Academy Eindhoven and you can see more of his design work HERE.

I personally see the work as hauntingly beautiful and it seems to have something to say about luxury and idols in our current society.  What are your thoughts? 

Skate Study House, modern design classics remastered with skateboards. It's a collection by Pierre-André Senizergues and Gil Le Bon de Lapointe. Colette will be showcasing their work as of January 28th.

They have an Eames Hang-It-All redone with skateboard wheels, and a really impressive version of a Noguchi Table.

Check out more of the designs HERE. 

Working with designer Jakub Berdych under the Qubus Studio banner, the interior of St. Bartholomew’s Church features 4 Eames chairs for the clergy and rows of Verner Panton chairs customised with a punched crucifix in formation down the center.

Check out some more picks: St. Bartholomew’s Church by Maxim Velcovsky.

How would you like to have an outdoor version of your Eames lounge or Barcelona chair sitting out back or along side the pool.  Dirk Winkel for his 2007 University of Arts Berlin final design project “A Stacking Hommage" might have brought you a little closer to that fanatasy.

From his site:

"Three idols of design history were realised as a low-price, stackable plastic chair, including all requirements like material, production and stackability as an important determinant.

The concept was to transform the original idol’s messages: the plastic chairs lose the message of financial power and wealth, they keep their design message and their grace and they gain a message of moral integrity by liberalising their archetypes from their stiff aura, like an ironic twist - and they fulfill an important intention of the bauhaus: to make their designs available for everyone."

Check out more of his work HERE. 

 [ Photo from Wary Meyers ]

Well some people have just taken it up a notch or two in their design devotion and went right ahead and permanetly plastered the designs onto their bodies.

On the positive side, at least have good taste in furniture design.  :)

homemade by tattoo artist m. oeser

tattoo artist nick baxter
http://www.nickbaxter.com

tattoo artist nick baxter
http://www.nickbaxter.com

Created by ID students from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia

A description from the website :

"These two pieces, the Eames toilet chair and the Eames child seat, are about breaking the status surrounding high design objects. Through physically invasive alterations, these once iconic, elite, forms are liberated from their old, restrained image. The project is not a critique of the Eames, but rather a fulfillment of their original ideals."

A disgrace to the good name, or a respectful honor for the chairs? What are your thoughts? 

Image Credits