Roberto Lugo installs a gigantic vase and fire hydrant in Madison Square Park

As a kid growing up in the Kensington neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Roberto Lugo didn’t have access to art classes in school. What he did have, though, was a drive to create, an ambition he expressed by tagging abandoned buildings throughout Philly. Later, he discovered clay and began merging his Puerto Rican heritage and love of hip-hop culture with this millennia-old medium by creating graffiti-covered classical pots and urns.

Fast forward two decades and you can find W*400 artist’s work in collections ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Today, you can also find his work out in the open, thanks to a special public art commission from Madison Square Park in New York. The installation, called ‘Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)’ sees two monumental sculptures placed in the verdant urban respite – a 20-foot-tall urn and a 15-foot-tall fire hydrant.

The urn is modeled on an antique Herend design, first designed for Queen Victoria in the 19th-century. But in lieu of butterflies and flowers, Lugo has decorated it with symbols and portraits honouring his Puerto Rican heritage. Most notable are the eight luminaries depicted on the sides of the urn, from music superstar Bad Bunny to US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to Lugo’s own parents. Exuberant, graffiti-inspired motifs wrap the sculpture from base to finial, including images of hibiscus blooms, vines, chickens, dominoes and billowing Puerto Rican flags.

For Lugo, it was important to present representations of his community on a vessel historically reserved for the privileged. ‘We are an incredibly resourceful people,’ Lugo says of Puerto Ricans. ‘We come from a history of our ancestors being enslaved, of colonisation, of all these social issues that created a history of poverty. For me this installation is a celebration of us overcoming.’

At the eastern edge of the park is a towering fire hydrant, painted in a bright orange-red and tagged with graffiti. For Lugo, the sculpture has special significance – as a kid, his father would crack open the neighbourhood fire hydrant so kids could play and cool off during a sweltering summer day. But for him, the symbol holds deeper meaning, a metaphor for a wider state of emergency that marginalised communities may find themselves in – especially as the US celebrates its 250th anniversary.

It all comes back to expressing the joys and struggles of the Puerto Rican experience – a narrative that is distinctly American. ‘The artwork that I'm most attracted to as a person is something that tells a story,’ Lugo reflects. ‘A professor of mine has this old adage: The more personal a story is, the more universal it becomes.’

‘Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter)’ is on view through 6 December 2026 in Madison Square Park