Roberto Lugo
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 crack epidemic, things were not easy for the Lugo family.
While his parents worked hard yet remained struggling, marginalized on the outskirts of American culture, Lugo was a quiet child, devoutly religious, with a thick Spanish accent and had trouble reading.
[6] 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.
In historical ceramics, he found connections to his own work, such as how the lines of a leaf or flower on a Chinese pot looked like graffiti arrows, and had the same quick, gestural quality as tagging.
The heads of two men of color – Lugo and his brother – sit in subjugation on a Victorian teacart, essentially serving as saucers for dripping cups.
)[3] In 2013 he explored the theme of incarceration more directly, when photographer Richard Ross invited him to collaborate on Juvenile In Justice,[7] a show in Philadelphia about imprisoned youth.
Coming on the heels of an artist residency he did in Hungary through the Kansas City Art Institute, the show marked a turning point in Lugo's career.
"[3] In late 2014, having recently graduated with his MFA from Penn State, Lugo received word he had been selected as an Emerging Artist for the National Council on Education in Ceramic Arts[9] 2015 conference, to be held in Providence Rhode Island.
Like all of Lugo's work, Defacing Adversity tackles issue of social justice, politics, race and poverty through the vehicle of highly decorated historically themed ceramic forms.
He maintains a series of video diaries on social media, speaking out on issues of race relations in the US, diversity in the field, and inspiring future generations of artists to dare to be the voices of change.
About this film IMDb shares “Past and present intertwine in this boundary-pushing cinematic documentary about world-renowned ceramics artist Roberto Lugo.” 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 Hamilton's use of hip hop wigs and waistcoats treatment of the American Revolution.
Their handpainted surfaces feature classic decorative patterns and motifs, the kind found on bandanas,[16] 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.
