''Stiff Box 12'' is a public artwork by

Lucas Samaras Lucas Samaras (born 1936) is a Greek-American artist. Early life and education Samaras was born in Kastoria, Greece. He studied at Rutgers University on a scholarship, where he met Allan Kaprow and George Segal. Career Samaras participated in ...

, installed in a courtyard at the

University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan with is one of the largest university art museums in the United States. Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alumni Memorial Hall ori ...

(UMMA).

Background

Samaras created the piece in 1971, and UMMA acquired it in 1997. Previously, it has been on display in the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

gardens, while on loan from the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

. In 1982,

Norman Parkinson Norman Parkinson (21 April 1913 – 15 February 1990) was an English portrait and fashion photographer. His work revolutionised British fashion photography, as he moved his subjects out of the studio and used outdoor settings. While servin ...

shot a photo of model Iman by the sculpture in Palm Beach, Florida.

Description

The piece is made of Cor-Ten steel, and it is 75 inches tall, 56 inches wide, and 15 inches deep. UMMA describes the piece as follows:

Made of thick steel, this sculpture has two very distinct halves. One on side, the thick sheet of steel gracefully curves around and back on itself, making loops and rounded edges. On the reverse, the steel is angular, jagged, and sharp, jutting into the spaces in the sculpture's interior and the space around the whole. At the very center of the piece, along the implied dividing line between the two sides, is a relatively small box.

Albert Hofammann, writing for

the Morning Call ''The Morning Call'' is a daily newspaper in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1883, it is the second longest continuously published newspaper in the Lehigh Valley, after ''The Express-Times''. In 2020, the newspaper permanently closed its Al ...

in 1984, wrote of the sculpture, "The work has an enormous physical weight, but its mass viewed in aesthetic terms is not clumsy for several reasons: The depth is only 14 inches, thus providing a two- dimensional effect, and the configurations are as much concerned with open space as with solid mass." Thomas E. Mcevilley noted in ''Sculpture in the Age of Doubt'' that the piece has a "lightninglike and dragonlike support . . . a delicate balancing that would be unbalanced by removing from or adding anything to the box itself."

References

1971 sculptures Public art in Michigan Tourist attractions in Ann Arbor, Michigan Steel sculptures in Michigan 1997 establishments in Michigan Outdoor sculptures in Michigan University of Michigan campus {{Michigan-stub