Elaborate Stained Glass Backboards Would Be Terrible for Basketball

You’ve heard of broken basketball backboards, but what about Baroque basketball backboards? Using the utilitarian basketball backboard as a point of departure for an astute visual pun, artist Victor Solomon compares popular basketball terminology to the culture of excess surrounding the sport in a stunning series of stained glass sculptures called “Literally Balling.”

“Literally Balling” is an exploration into the aesthetic convergence of historical opulence and our modern day kings of court. These stained glass backboards, painstakingly rendered in the traditional “Tiffany-Style” began as a joke, but have tapped the zeitgeist – basketball as grounds for a new cultural and artistic epoch.

Despite its humorous origins, the work that went into creating these spectacular pieces of came glasswork is no joke. According to the project’s website each piece takes Solomon over 100 hours of labor to create, because besides the designing and cutting of the glass for the backboards, these sculptures also feature details such as a customized rim and hand-woven nets.

I only hope these Baroque backboards never do get broken, because I know if I’d put that much time into something, not only would I be shattered if it broke, I’d be literally bawling!

[via the creator’s project]