A two-part public monument to Puerto Rican culture was unveiled in Madison Square Park in Manhattan. One colossal urn features hand-painted portraits of the artist’s parents and Puerto Rican luminaries, including Bad Bunny, Sonia Sotomayor, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The urn’s form references a pot historically associated with aristocracy and wealth, reframed as egalitarian by placing widely recognized figures inside it. The second work is a 15-foot orange fire hydrant that recalls hot Philadelphia summers when water from hydrants cooled the artist as a boy. Both sculptures were commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy, timed to the United States’s 250th birthday, and remain through December 6.
"Lugo's colossal urn "Capicú de Cariño (I Heard It Both Ways)" features hand-painted portraits of his parents, Maribel and Gilberto Lugo, alongside Puerto Rican luminaries, including reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda."
"In another section of the park, a 15-foot-tall orange fire hydrant, "Para Los Días Caliente (This Is For The Hot Ones )," towers over passersby. The work pays homage to thehot summer days of his boyhood in Philadelphia, when he would release water from fire hydrants to cool down."
""I wanted to create an artwork around that idea, that you are the featured person in this pot that historically has been meant for the aristocracy and the wealthy," Lugo told Hyperallergic during the unveiling on the sweltering late spring day. "So this pot is egalitarian in that way that I feel like it connects with or represents a wide variety of the immigrant and American experience.""
"Both large-scale sculptures, commissioned by the nonprofit Madison Square Park Conservancy, are timed to the United States's 250th birthday and will remain in the park through December 6."
#puerto-rican-culture #public-art #sculpture-and-ceramics #immigrant-experience #madison-square-park
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