Stiff Box 12

Samaras created the piece in 1971, and UMMA acquired it in 1997. Previously, it was on display in the White House gardens, while on loan from the Guggenheim Museum.{{Cite web|title=Stiff Box No. 12 - Lucas Samaras|url=https://clintonwhitehouse2.archives.gov/WH/Tours/Garden_Exhibit4/samaras.html|access-date=2020-09-25|website=clintonwhitehouse2.archives.gov}}{{Cite book|last1=Monkman|first1=Betty C.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PnVQAAAAMAAJ&q=stiff+box+no+12+white+house|title=20th Century American Sculpture in the White House Garden|last2=Clinton|first2=Hillary|date=October 2000|publisher=Harry N. Abrams|isbn=978-0-8109-4221-9|language=en}}{{Cite news|last=Conroy|first=Sarah Booth|date=1996-07-29|title=A GARDEN OF ARTLY DELIGHTS|language=en-US|newspaper=Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/07/29/a-garden-of-artly-delights/d8c99998-c535-4df7-a511-6878ecc44d49/|access-date=2020-09-25|issn=0190-8286}}

In 1982, Norman Parkinson shot a photo of model Iman by the sculpture in Palm Beach, Florida.{{Cite web|title=ICONICLICENSING|url=https://iconiclicensing.net/Imagedetail/NP_FA_IM001-iman|access-date=2020-09-25|website=iconiclicensing.net}}{{Cite journal|last=Trompeteler|first=Helen|title=Lifework: Norman Parkinson's Century of Style|url=https://www.academia.edu/5954923|journal=Photomonitor|date=January 2013 |language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Norman Parkinson Lifework Exhibition Preview|url=https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/norman-parkinson-photography-national-theatre-exhibition-preview-pictures|access-date=2020-11-10|website=British Vogue|date=13 February 2013 |language=en-GB}}

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.{{Cite web|title=Stiff Box 12|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1997-sl-1.138/1997_1.138b.jpg|access-date=2020-09-25|website=University of Michigan Museum of Art|language=en}}

Albert Hofammann, writing for the Morning Call 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."{{Cite book|last=Mcevilley|first=Thomas C.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pUl77WY0wyUC&q=%22stiff+box+12%22&pg=PA155|title=Sculpture in the Age of Doubt|date=August 1999|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing Inc.|isbn=978-1-58115-023-0|language=en}}

{{Reflist}}

{{University of Michigan}}

Category:1971 sculptures

Category:Public art in Michigan

Category:Tourist attractions in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Category:Steel sculptures in Michigan

Category:1997 establishments in Michigan

Category:Outdoor sculptures in Michigan

Category:University of Michigan campus

{{US-sculpture-stub}}

{{Public-art-stub}}

{{Michigan-stub}}