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Bidding Starts at: $10,000

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Just Another Day in the Neighborhood: Raft

Vessel, (2022), Orange + Black Series. Glazed stoneware

Dimensions: 10" (Dia.) x 19" (H)

Retail Value: $35,000

Donated by Roberto Lugo

Just Another Day in the Neighborhood: Raft by Roberto Lugo

Roberto Lugo is a Philadelphia-based artist, activist, educator, and spoken word poet known for creating large-scale and ornately decorated ceramics that reimagine historic European and Asian objects of the medium. Lugo complicates the history of these works and the themes they represent - class, privilege, societal values - by creating prized objects that both depict prominent and ordinary figures of color and reference his own Afro-Latino heritage. The permanence of clay complements this mission, as Lugo's works become lasting monuments to the history and culture of the disenfranchised. In short, Lugo elevates POC culture, community, and history, bringing attention to critical issues of inequality and racial injustice in the art spaces and institutions in which his work is shown.

In Just Another Day in the Neighborhood, one side depicts five figures in a sailboat with stylized, repetitive waves and a sky rendered with simple lines. Birds with human heads fly above. On the reverse side, a man is seated in profile, smoking, with a bag of money on his lap. Leafy vines reach toward him from the upper corners of the square. Beneath him, small silhouetted animals run. The drapery on the lower half of the figure once again serves as a reference to the Classical world but the backwards baseball cap, black t-shirt, and Nikes undercut the idea of a toga and places the figure firmly in the modern age.

From the artist's Orange + Black Series, this timeless piece depicting powerful commentary on social justice issues will be an important addition to your collection.

• Minimum shipping on this piece $500
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• Shipping is NOT included in the winning bid

About the Artist:

Roberto Lugo 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 and 2D works. Lugo attended Kansas City Art Institute, earning his BA in 2012, and went on to the Penn State University School of Visual Arts to earn his MFA in 2014. In 2019, Lugo won the Rome Prize in recognition of his innovative and cross-disciplinary work. His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The High Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, The Walters Museum of Art, and more.