Meet Roberto Lugo, one of the many contemporary artists whose work is featured in Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room.
Roberto Lugo is renowned for his vibrant reinterpretations of 18th-century European porcelain forms, which he reimagines through the lens of contemporary hip-hop culture and embellishes with graffiti and kente prestige cloth patterns.
His works center the portraits of heroes whose visages do not often adorn fine porcelain or whose stories are too often absent from such luxurious wares.
On his piece Digable Underground in The Met's Afrofuturist period room, abolitionist Harriet Tubman faces the kitchen and contemporary singer-songwriter Erykah Badu looks into the living room; together, they reflect the ways that the kitchen acts as a site of temporal confluence—a merging of past and present into future possibilities.
Take a virtual tour of the exhibition to explore further.
Meet the Artists: Roberto Lugo
5 min. watch
Contributors
Managing Producer: Kate Farrell
Producer: Melissa Bell
Editor: Lela Jenkins
Graphic Design: Abby Chen
Music: Austin Fisher
Photographs: Paul Lachenauer
Special thanks: Roberto Lugo, Sarah Lawrence, Ian Alteveer, Ana Matisse Donefer-Hickie, Claire Lanier, Victoria Martinez, Sofie Andersen
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Art Mentioned
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Roberto Lugo
2021