Roberto Lugo

Roberto Lugo (born 1981) is an American potter, social activist, spoken-word poet, and educator .

Lugo's work as a social activist is represented in his artworks, where he draws together hip-hop, history, politics and his cultural background into formal ceramics , Lugo began his career as a graffiti artist and teacher before discovering ceramics and is the recipient of the 2019 Rome Prize the third child in his family who moved to the U.S. mainland from Puerto Rico. His mother, Maribel Lugo, was 21 years old and his father Gilberto, a Pentecostal preacher, had a middle-school education, as he had been working sugar-cane fields in Puerto Rico since he was a child. Raised during a time in Philadelphia that saw prevalent drug use and gang activity, with many of the neighborhood houses abandoned due to the late-20th-century crack epidemic, things were not easy for the Lugo family.

Seeking better work opportunities, his father often biked to work in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, an act Lugo associates with his current work: "When I sit at a potter's wheel, I often think of my father's bike tire spinning, and this metaphor has always had me reach for more." Teachers failed to recognize his creative talents and even singled him out as a troublemaker in a school trip to a local prison.

As a teenager, he liked grunge rock and ice hockey, in addition to the salsa, rap, and baseball favored by neighborhood kids, who pointed to him as "weird" or "trying to be white".

Lugo worked various factory jobs in Philadelphia, until at age 22 he moved to South Florida to live with family and decide what to do with his life. He saw college as a way to earn a decent living, which is when he enrolled in a ceramics class at a community college. Told that "real, honest" art came from personal experience, he made pieces like a fire hydrant that evoked happy memories of showering in the street with his father on nights when the family's water had been turned off. "It was the first time in my life I was ever told I was good at anything," he says of those early efforts, adding that artmaking immediately became his calling: "Right off the bat, it felt important." a show in Philadelphia about imprisoned youth. Ross, whose work is photographing incarcerated youth, had come to Penn State to critique students in the photography department. Lugo put pots in his backpack and waited outside the critique room for Ross. 2015 conference, to be held in Providence, Rhode Island. Lugo's deeply personal lecture, part spoken-word performance, part sermon, electrified the crowd of nearly 5,000 attendees. His speech about how pottery saved his life, including the image of the phrase "This machine kills hate" painted onto his pottery wheel earned him an enthusiastic standing ovation. "I want to take Roberto Lugo out of the equation for a moment, the individual. I am proud to be a part of a community of people that honors the things I just talked about, that finds those things valuable… We’re a culture that can change the world." In 2021, Lugo's ceramic Digable Underground was featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Digable Underground featured Harriet Tubman and Erykah Badu reflecting on how the kitchen works to bring them together.

Outside of creating work for solo shows, Lugo has been very busy since his NCECA lecture. He has completed several short-term residencies, one at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia and another at Baltimore Clayworks, giving lectures around the country to emerging ceramic artists and schools, and serving as a visiting artist in various locations.

In 2015, he began teaching at Marlboro College in southern Vermont, where his is on the tenure track. "I wanted to be in a place where I can see progress can be made, in a place that doesn’t have diversity— but really does have the desire to become more racially diverse," he explained. He has been featured at multiple exhibitions, including SOFA Chicago and a solo show at Eutectic Gallery in Portland, Oregon.

Lugo also remains active in social justice in other forums. He maintains a series of video diaries on social media, speaking out on issues of race relations in the U.S., diversity in the field, and inspiring future generations of artists to dare to be the voices of change. He has also contributed to social change organizations such as The Democratic Cup. Lugo is an assistant professor of art at Tyler School of Art.

Film

The film Without Wax was set to release in the fall of 2019, directed by Cyrus Duff and produced by Edward Columbia. About this film, IMDb shares "Past and present intertwine in this boundary-pushing cinematic documentary about world-renowned ceramics artist Roberto Lugo."

Art Lugo's work has been compared to Kehinde Wiley's portraits of young people of color in heroic poses, often based on famous historical paintings, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamiltons use of hip-hop wigs and waistcoats treatment of the American Revolution. combined with elements of modern urban graffiti, plus striking portraits of individuals you might not expect to find on a type of ornate luxury item historically made for the rich – people like Sojourner Truth, Cornel West, and Erykah Badu, as well as Lugo's family members and, very often, the artist himself. Faces framed by colorful patterns are prominent,

Family Roberto has two sons and lives and works in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.