After seeing the exhibition “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room,” at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021, Amy Abrams was moved by the work of Philadelphia-based ceramic artist Roberto Lugo (American, b. 1981) whose work was featured prominently in the exhibition. In 2024, she generously donated three of his ceramic plates to the Simmons Center.

Now on display in the Center’s Seminar Room, Lugo’s “Ida B. Wells Plate,” “Sojourner Truth Plate,” and “James Baldwin Plate” (2020, glazed stoneware, slip, and overglazed paint) honor politicians, activists, and literary figures who have been important to Black History and Black Culture.  Lugo embellishes their portraits with graffiti and kente prestige cloth patterns.

Lugo’s plates round out a robust display of works the Center has acquired over the years. These pieces by contemporary artists — including Edouard Duval Carrié, Renold Laurent, Joseph Holston, Geri Augusto and Pamela Pike Gordinier — reflect on the history and legacies of racial slavery through a variety of representational and abstract paintings, assemblages, and sculptural works. All of these offer visitors a variety of ways to think about and engage with this often painful and inaccessible history.

Kiku Langford McDonald
Communications Manager