Roberto Lugo, co-presented by Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and R & Company, is the first solo exhibition of the celebrated ceramic artist in Texas. Known for infusing traditional ceramics with a 21st-century street sensibility, the artist’s defiant, genre-mixing practice confronts the colonial legacy embedded in the history of ceramics. The exhibition features sculptural ceramic vessels that remix decorative traditions with autobiographical, diasporic, and pop-cultural references. Amphora forms inspired by Classical antiquity feature contemporary cultural icons such as Selena, Dennis Rodman, and Tupac Shakur, while handmade Nike Air Force 1 sneakers and pitbull-shaped umbrella stands with ornate surface motifs borrow from Chinese imperial porcelain.
At the heart of the exhibition is the artist’s interpretation of the famed 19th-century Peacock Room, a gilded porzellanzimmer (porcelain room) that was designed to house the prized ceramic collection of British shipping magnate, Frederick Richards Leyland. The room was painted with an eponymous avian motif by James McNeill Whistler and became globally known as a symbolic critique of wealth and power in arts patronage. Lugo’s homage to the iconic space includes a handmade mantle, lined with mosaic tile accents and framed by a shelving system holding an array of the artist’s ceramic vessels and decorative objects. The installation reflects the artist’s longstanding interest in approaches to connoisseurship and the ways in which collections can illuminate the forces and motivations that shape artistic production.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Lugo will deliver the 2025 Booker-Lowe Lecture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Glassell School of Art on September 20, 2025. This highly anticipated talk offers a rare opportunity for the public to hear directly from the artist about the influences that shape his radical approach to ceramics. An artist and poet, Lugo brings a deeply personal and politically engaged perspective to this distinguished annual lecture series.
A curated retail installation of limited-edition works by Lugo will be on view and available for purchase at HCCC during the run of the exhibition. These artist-made pieces offer an accessible extension of the exhibition and reinforce Lugo’s commitment to creating work that lives expansively beyond the gallery space.
Above: “Roberto Lugo: The Gilded Ghetto.” Photo by Joe Kramm, courtesy R & Company.
