Meet the Artists: Roberto Lugo

Meet Roberto Lugo, one of the many contemporary artists whose work is featured in "Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room."

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: https://youtu.be/A_1QbBQ5pag

Learn more about the space and explore all the artworks on view: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/afrofuturist-period-room

#MetAfrofuturist

Production Credits:
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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© 2022 The Metropolitan Museum of Art


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