patrice letarnec turns famous furniture into uncomfortable and absurd design objects

famous, functional designs become impractical and awkward objects in french photographer patrice letarnec’s collection of ‘prank furniture’. the series ‘uncomfortable’ deforms iconic tables and chairs with painfully protruding seats, precariously unbalanced legs and alarmingly uneven surfaces. rendered unusable, these emblems of contemporary design become idle art objects, subverted from their original meaning and motive. 

softshell chair — ronan and erwan bouroullec, 2009

for ‘uncomfortable’, letarnec turns the aesthetically pleasing into the absurdly impractical, manipulating the key characteristics of some of the world’s most recognizable design objects. jean prouvé’s ‘standard SP’ chair is missing half of one of its legs, while the surface of his ‘guéridon’ table slopes on a steep, skewed angle. wooden posts protrude from hee welling and HAY’s ordinarily-cozy lounge sofa. similarly, ronan and erwan bouroullec’s ‘softshell chair’ has a fin-shaped appendix protruding from its seat, making sitting quite an awkward and uncomfortable encounter…

standard SP — jean prouvé, 1934/1950

fauteuil de salon — jean prouvé, 1939

about a lounge sofa — hee welling and HAY, 2014

eames molded fiberglass chair — charles & ray eames, 1950

guéridon table — jean prouvé, 1949

these emblems of contemporary design become idle art objects

the series ‘uncomfortable’ deforms iconic tables and chairs with painfully protruding seats