Alexandre Arrechea's Orange Functional Brings Playable Basketball Tree to Toronto's Lassonde Art Trail
Located at Toronto's Biidaasige Park, adjacent to Old Firehall 30, Alexandre Arrechea's sculpture, Orange Functional, showcases more than twenty basketball rims attached to a red trunk. This installation is part of the Lassonde Art Trail and features rims set at different heights for interactive play. It is a progression from Arrechea's 2010 work, Orange Tree. In 2022, Art Omi in Ghent, New York, commissioned this functional iteration, marking Arrechea's inaugural functional basketball sculpture. The design introduces unexpected gameplay, as missed shots can land in lower rims. The piece's intricate yet recognizable form fosters creative engagement. Documentation of the installation is provided by Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker, among newly planted greenery in the park.
Key facts
- Alexandre Arrechea's Orange Functional is installed at the entrance to Toronto's Biidaasige Park, in the plaza of Old Firehall 30, as part of the Lassonde Art Trail.
- The sculpture features more than twenty basketball rims branching from a bright red steel trunk, with rims at varying heights.
- The work is playable: anyone arriving with a basketball can shoot into the hoops.
- Orange Functional evolved from Arrechea's Orange Tree, developed in 2010, which had branching ends terminating in basketball rims and balls gathered below like fallen fruit.
- Contemporary documentation describes earlier versions of the sculpture reaching roughly twenty feet high.
- A major change came in 2022, when Art Omi in Ghent, New York, commissioned a version designed for actual shooting.
- Art Omi describes it as the artist's first functional basketball sculpture, built from steel with basketball nets and a painted finish.
- The work explores instability: multiplied rims scramble the standard geometry of basketball, so a missed shot can drop through a lower hoop and become a basket.
Entities
Artists
- Alexandre Arrechea
- Vid Ingelevics
- Ryan Walker
- Aryz
- Francesco Faraci
Institutions
- Lassonde Art Trail
- Art Omi
- Old Firehall 30
- designboom
- Instituto Superior de Arte
- Los Carpinteros
- Westwing
- Crosby Studios
- Wu-Tang Clan
- Clarks
- Apple
- Apple Music Hall
- Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
- TINYL
- Bewilder
- Trone
- IKEA
- FRAKTA
- FREITAG
Locations
- Toronto
- Canada
- Biidaasige Park
- Ghent
- New York
- United States
- Old Firehall 30
- Trinidad
- Cuba
- Havana
- Palermo
- Zurich
- Switzerland