Roberto Lugo

ORIGINAL RAPPER URN BY THE SELF-PROCLAIMED "VILLAGE POTTER" WHO MARRIES THE AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLOGY OF HIP HOP WITH THE TIME-HONORED TRADITIONS OF CERAMIC ART

Roberto Lugo is a Philadelphia-based artist, ceramicist, social activist, poet, and educator. Lugo utilizes classical pottery forms in conjunction with portraiture and surface design reminiscent of his North Philadelphia upbringing and Hip Hop culture to highlight themes of poverty, inequality, and racial injustice. Lugo’s works are multicultural mash-ups; traditional European and Asian ceramic techniques reimagined with a 21st-century street sensibility. Their hand-painted surfaces feature classic decorative patterns and motifs combined with elements of modern urban graffiti and portraits of individuals whose faces are historically absent on this type of luxury item - people like Sojourner Truth, Dr. Cornel West, and The Notorious B.I.G, as well as Lugo’s family members and, very often, himself.

The current lot, Rapper Urn, is a perfect example of Lugo's oeuvre. Modeled with undulating, linked figures acting as literal supports for one another, the bodies are painted in a riot of primary hues decorated with patterns and motifs both contemporary and antique. The effect it almost totemic, the Afrocentric color palette gives the urn a strong, celebratory feel, the work itself an homage to the dynamic creators and the culture of Hip Hop. The overall effect is the essence of Lugo's work: a successful, evolving marriage between traditional handicraft and modern street style.

Lugo holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Penn State. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, among others. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2019 Pew Fellowship, a Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize, and a US Artist Award. His work is found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Brooklyn Museum, Walters Art Museum, and more. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, PA.

Provenance:

Courtesy of the artist

Condition Report:

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