after u.r. (a magnetic superbox)

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Courtesy Volume Gallery, photography Thea Volk

Name
after u.r. (a magnetic superbox)
Designer
RO/LU
Date
2011
Disciplines
  • Product Design

Minneapolis-based artists and designers RO/LU created after u.r. (a magnetic superbox) as part of an exhibition at the Wright design auction house in Chicago. The artwork’s title holds many keys in deciphering this pair of enigmatic objects. U.R. is a reference to German artist Ulrich Rückriem, known for his totemic carved stone sculptures, from which the forms of RO/LU’s piece allude. Another reference is to a solitary, 30-foot-tall monolithic rock found in northern Minnesota’s Gunflint Iron Formation, which exhibits magnetic properties and was placed in its upright position by retreating glaciers. “Superbox” refers to a series of works by the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass undertaken in the mid-1960s that were very large wardrobes or storage containers of simple and minimal shapes painted with bold graphic patterns that would presage Sottsass’s later postmodern work of the 1980s.