Joseph Heidecker’s Photofurniture is another incarnation in the increasing trend of placing any image or pattern—however obscure, whatever the origins—along the contours of products. But unlike past contributors Noodle, who used digital photo-imaging to create walls and lampshades with expansive cityscapes, or Difasa, who re-produced photographs in pinpoint accuracy across a pair of closet-doors, Heidecker achieves his re-appropriation via the timeworn method of cut and paste, and that’s old-school cut and paste, for those of you who may hear only computer-speak.

Photofurniture. Designed by Joseph Heidecker.

Heidecker began this endeavor at last year’s Design Miami with a collaborative notion he describes as follows: “With a rented vintage photo booth, people took their pictures and one set of photos went to participants and one set I used to incorporate onto custom made chairs.” He eventually expanded the Photofurniture Collection to include a trio of vintage kitchen, coffee, and low tables, in addition to a six-drawer dresser. The collage of photos certainly has a retro appeal, prompting observers to conclude that these are “found” works, in the tradition of Marcel DuChamp, perhaps. But the truth is that Photofurniture is a clever re-capitulation of that universal standard for the embarrassing yearbook photo, whose hallmark is the 1950s.

Last year’s participants dolled themselves up, as it were, with their best re-creation of 50s hair (pageboys and bouffants for the ladies, crew cuts for the guys) and clothes (think women in pencil skirts and peter pan collars, men in bad tuxedos) and posed in Heidecker’s time-warp photo booth. The result is an uncanny rendering of that vintage look, yet the faces staring back at you are very much creatures of today’s new millennium. The idea of being immortalized on some stranger’s kitchen table or bedroom dresser may seem disconcerting to some, yet the universality of the project is worthy of admiration. In fashioning furniture from faces, Heidecker brings us closer to our fellow humans, while taking us on a bit of a tour through history to boot.

Via Design Milk.