The first time I saw the Algue on display in the design gallery of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, I thought, “gonna get me some of those.” And then I did, and when I got them home and took them out of the box I realized they took a little more doing to figure out how to arrange and hang than your standard piece of wall sculpture from TJ Maxx. Also neither I nor anyone at the gift shop knows what the correct way to say “Algue” is, so you’re on your own with that.
I googled many pictures of how to arrange the Algue but most examples on the internet seem to be showing hundreds of them in use in commercial settings as space dividers, so I wanted to get some more examples of one-box wall sculpture set-ups on the internet. I really like the Algue as a wall sculpture because I feel like it gets you a lot of “art” for the dollar – there’s not a lot of things you can fill a wall with at the $115 price point that look this good. Also I think the Algue is one of those design classics that your kids will think are stupid but your grandkids will fight over when you die, so I kept the original boxes myself…
The Algue is a product consisting of individual pieces of identical vaguely-coral-shaped branches that you can hook together in novel ways. It comes in 5 colors, black, white, light green, dark green, and red. (Note on the two greens because you can’t tell this except when you see them in person – the light green is a pure lime green, the dark green is a toned version of the same color. Many people mix them together to make a display of Algue with more depth.) It used to come in 2 more colors, clear and light red, but I think they have been discontinued.
Since we just bought another box and once again needed to figure out how to arrange these things, I was inspired share my Algue learnings. We have moved our first set from one house to the other, configured completely differently both times, and with that and now hanging a new second set, we are something of Algue configuration hobbyists. Both of our displays were made with the standard 25 pack box, if you want to make a slightly bigger display you can buy more pieces in 6 packs, or individually.
So here’s how to get that modern art goodness up on your wall. Arrange your Algue on the ground first, and insert the pegs (insert from the back, they are invisible that way), and then try to figure out how it will interact with gravity and where to put your supporting nails. Also, don’t feel pressured to use all 25 pieces, sometimes it just looks better with a bit less and that’s fine, leave a few in the box and if you move house or want to arrange it somewhere else, they are there waiting for you.
I like the Algue best when it’s arranged in a “creeping vine” fashion, with a clear starting point of one piece that branches and expands into a full spread. This layout was arranged to echo the shape of the individual pieces, and uses the full box.
Once you have the Algue arranged to your liking on the floor, grab a partner, and get nailing! It is very easy to hang, all you need is to put some small dull-finish supporting nails through selective holes that don’t have pegs. If you end up not pleased with it, take it down and rearrange it, the pegs come out easily enough if you are gentle.
A pretty pleasing asymmetrical arrangement, we fancy! The Algue also has a cool amount of shadow-play that creates interesting depth, so consider hanging it around off-center light sources.
For a second layout idea, here is how we arranged our red ones, this is on a very blank wall in our kitchen. To fill the wall in a broad and vertically symmetrical way, we used 3 starting points and branched them out together at the bottom. This one did not use the entire 25 pieces, because taste is knowing when to stop.
Hope if you found this post in an Algue Arrangement Google Deep Dive you found it helpful! While the pieces are tricky when you first greet them, these are very popular for a reason.
Big Orange Ranch 