September 20, 2025
In conjunction with the exhibition Pigeon Crib: Houston Edition, on view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (September 6–October 25), artist Roberto Lugo delivers the 2025 Booker-Lowe Lecture at the Glassell School of Art. At this highly anticipated event, Lugo conducts a demonstration on the wheel at 4 p.m., followed by a lecture at the School's Favrot Auditorium at 5 p.m. The public has the rare opportunity to watch the artist at work while also learning 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. 

Established in 2009 by Nana Booker and David Lowe, the Booker-Lowe Lecture is a cornerstone of the Glassell Lecture Series, bringing students, faculty, and the public into conversation with leading voices in contemporary art. Each year, the Booker-Lowe Lecture highlights one mid-career artist or scholar whose practice emphasizes craft, process, and technique across disciplines from painting and sculpture to ceramics, metals, photography, printmaking, and art history. Past speakers include Andrew Wagner, Dan Cameron, Peter Held, Albert Paley, Karyn Oliver, Namita Gupta Wiggers, Glenn Adamson, Garth Johnson, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Leonardo Drew, Tanya Aguiñiga, Sonya Clark, and Susie J. Selbert. 

Plan Your Visit

• Admission is free.
• This event takes place on Level 1 of the Glassell School of Art. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Parking Information | Museum Hours | MFAH Campus Map

About the Artist
Roberto Lugo is a Philadelphia-based artist, ceramicist, social activist, poet, and educator. Lugo utilizes classical pottery forms in conjunction with portraiture and surface designs that draw on his North Philadelphia upbringing as well as Hip Hop culture to highlight themes of poverty, inequality, and racial injustice. Lugo’s works utilize traditional European and Asian ceramic techniques reimagined with a 21st-century street sensibility. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, among others. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2023 Heinz Award, a Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures award, a 2019 Pew Fellowship, a Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize, and a US Artist Award. His work is found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Brooklyn Museum, the Walters Art Museum, and more.