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© Roberto Lugo courtesy of Wexler Gallery. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum o…

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Artist/Maker Roberto Lugo (American, born 1981)

Date2020

MediumGlazed ceramic and enamel paint

DimensionsOverall: 29 × 16 × 16 in. (73.7 × 40.6 × 40.6 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, William G. Roehrick ’34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund

Object number2021.1a-b

On view

DescriptionRoberto Lugo works at the intersection of high and low art, creating objects in which classical ceramic forms and traditional patterning sit comfortably with the graffiti tags he learned as a youth growing up in Philadelphia. Proud visages of Black and Latinx figures—whether a historical leader or a slain rap icon—frequently populate his vessels, helping to reclaim space for these cultures within the traditional canon that museums so often present. The portraits depicted on Lugo’s vases hold personal significance, and the artist has stated that Kamala Harris’s political candidacy was a huge point of inspiration during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her multicultural background embodies the unity Lugo seeks to create through his own practice and in order to honor her specific heritage, he included colors and motifs on this onggi-style vase that are sourced from Indian art. Harris’s fierce personal determination is represented by the presence of an imposing dragon, a figure Lugo first began copying from the Asian vase collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum while an undergraduate. Several graffiti monikers are visible towards the top and lower sections of the vase, which the artist considers a “cameo” by himself and his original art teachers. On the reverse side, the word “MADAME” is spelled out in graffiti, referring to Harris’s official title as our country’s first woman, Black, and South-Asian American Vice President. Roberto Lugo (b. 1981, Philadelphia; lives and works in Philadelphia) was named the 2018 Ceramic Artist of the Year by the Ceramic Arts Network. He holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Penn State. His work is in institutional collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the 2019 recipient of the Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize, and is currently the program head of ceramics at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.

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