Pottery saved this Philly artist's life. Now he has an exhibition at Princeton
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Artist Roberto Lugo speaks about one of his pottery pieces. Photo: Courtesy of Jeffrey Evans
North Philly artist Robert Lugo isn't just spinning a pottery wheel; he's also telling stories about human struggles.
Why it matters: The 43-year-old, who's Puerto Rican with Taino ancestry, fuses personal and historical narratives into his art, exploring issues of racism, injustice and inequality.
Driving the news: Lugo's latest pottery exhibition, "Orange and Black," opened this month at Princeton University and runs through July 6.
- The installation is inspired by the ancient Greek black- and red-figure pottery style, but he instead uses orange — "the color of prison uniforms" — to make a social commentary, Lugo tells Axios.
Zoom in: One piece, "Same Boy, Different Breakfast," is a vase showing a young boy serenely sitting in his bedroom on one side, and him sitting in a prison cell on the other. It's next to an ancient Greek vessel used for mixing water and wine.
- Lugo's brother, Luis, inspired the piece. Luis, now a barbershop owner in Florida, spent five years in prison, but Lugo always viewed him as the innocent boy he grew up with.
What they're saying: "We had literally the same parents, the same upbringing," Lugo tells Axios. "How easily that could've been any of us."
- Through his work, Princeton's associate curator Carolyn M. Laferrière says, Lugo is "creating a new mythology and visual vocabulary of life in America."
Flashback: As a child, Lugo remembers moving a dozen times despite his hardworking parents' persistence to make ends meet. His father rode a bicycle every day from Kensington to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, to work a 10-hour shift at a tire shop.
- One of his first pottery pieces was a fire hydrant, representing the times he'd shower in the fire hydrant because the family's water got shut off.
- Lugo never expected to graduate, let alone earn a master's degree from Penn State.
Now he's living out his dream by teaching his craft to kids in his community.
The bottom line: Lugo's deep connection to art can be summed up in four words (words he once printed onto T-shirts):
- "Pottery saved my life."
If you go: Princeton University Art Museum's Art@Bainbridge gallery, admission is free