Academic recognition for Jacksonville's iconic badboy artist, Lee Harvey

Controversial Jacksonville artists gains recognition

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.Lee Harvey has produced genuine and important art in many different mediums. His paintings, spectacularly colorful, can be divided into three main groups: Non Objectivist, Political Satire, and Faux Decorative.

Some of his art shows have involved the police or worse, and his gallery in Five Points created a volcano of activity credited with emasculating the local censorship movement when it was raided by police in the 90s.

His political art has been scathingly satirical and challenging to both the Right and Left of political center, leading to some very amusing moments in journalism both here and abroad. During exactly the same time that the Chicago Tribune was excoriating Lee's work as the most offensive art in the country in an article entitled "Republican Nazis?" FolioWeekly was handing out the brickbats to Lee because they had mistakenly been given the impression that Lee himself had come out of the closet as a Nazi. (Apparently the telephone technology which would have allowed them to fact check their brickbat before publishing had not yet been developed at Folio prior to 2004.)

Similarly, his constant production of political stickers has been noticed on more than one occasion, and in 2009, the political commentary associated with his work has merited inclusion in an academic museum at St. Lawrence University. Here is the listing of the work and why it was included in the collection. 

This is the second time that one of Lee's political stickers have been included in a national collection of political street art. Title CIA Approved Fox News Illuminati Mind Control. The image itself was turned into a successful line of t shirts that are sold both by QuelQuesoIt.Net and Jello Biafra. Its fascinating to see Lee's street art work get recognized in so many places. Congratulations to Mr. Harvey.

The Techfest 2009 Show-specific images from the Gallery's CONTENTdm Web site will be presented, including:

  • Wall Street, New York photograph by Paul Strand
  • Altar inside the Norbulingka, Tibetan Buddhist Monastery photograph by Alison Wright
  • My Squad, Quang Tri Province photograph by Patrick T. Stearns
  • FOX News sticker by leeharveyinc.com
  • A selection of 63 Vietnam War-era photographs from the United States and Vietnam that are part of the University's Permanent Collection will also be presented, as well as a larger selection of 211 photographs from the Permanent Collection.

www.leeharveyinc.com

Article by Stephen Dare; photo/graphic by Stephen Dare for www.metrojacksonville.com

RELATED ARTICLES: