Joe Lewis (artist)

{{Short description|American artist and academic (born 1953)}}{{Infobox artist

| name = Joe Lewis

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| birth_name = Joseph S. Lewis III

| birth_date = {{birth-date|1953}}

| birth_place = New York City

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| field = Digital art, Photography, Performance Art, Art Education, Fashion Moda, African American History, community-based art-making, Digital Dye-sublimation printing, Post-conceptual art

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| awards = Phi Kappa Phi, Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Academy of American Poets Award, National Endowment for the Arts, Design Annual Award of Excellence for Public Service Communication Arts

}}

Joe Lewis (Joseph S. Lewis III; born 1953 in New York City) is a post-conceptual non-media specific American artist, musician, writer and art educator.{{Cite web|date=2009-10-16|title=UCI arts school names new dean|url=https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-xpm-2009-10-16-dpt-lewis101709-story.html|access-date=2021-03-14|website=Daily Pilot|language=en-US}} Lewis was co-founding director of Fashion Moda in New York, where he curated and mounted numerous exhibitions and performance events.Alan W. Moore, Artists' Collectives: Focus on New York, 1975-2000 in Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945, Blake Stimson & Gregory Sholette, (eds) University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2007, pp. 193–221 He also early on has been associated with Colab and ABC No RioMax Schumann (ed.) A Book about Colab (and Related Activities) Printed Matter, Inc, 2016: pp.9-11{{cite news|last1=Morgan|first1=Tiernan|date=10 May 2016|title=Thirty Years On, Colab Members Assess Their Successes and Failures|work=Hyperallergic|url=https://hyperallergic.com/294030/thirty-years-on-colab-members-assess-their-successes-and-failures/|access-date=9 March 2021}} and appeared in the 1983 seminal American hip hop film Wild Style.

Lewis received his bachelor’s in 1975 from Hamilton College, and then his M.F.A. in 1989 from Maryland Institute. {{Cite web|last=Press Release|date=October 15, 2009|title=Joseph S. Lewis III named dean of Claire Trevor School of the Arts, UCI Today, University of California, Irvine|url=http://today.uci.edu/news/nr_artsdean_091015.php|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091026094826/http://today.uci.edu/news/nr_artsdean_091015.php|archive-date=October 26, 2009|website=University of California, Irvine|publisher=}} He served as a faculty member at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) from 1991 to 1995, and then as chair of the Department of Art at California State University, Northridge from 1995 to 2001. In 2001, he became the Dean of the School of Art & Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. In 2004, he was appointed Dean of the School of Art & Design in the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in New York State.[http://today.uci.edu/news/nr_artsdean_091015.php Joseph S. Lewis III named dean of Claire Trevor School of the Arts] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130822142517/http://today.uci.edu/news/nr_artsdean_091015.php |date=2013-08-22 }}, UCI Today, University of California, Irvine. He became the Dean of Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California, Irvine in 2010{{Cite web|date=2010-10-29|title=New UCI arts dean 'inspired' by O.C.|url=https://www.ocregister.com/2010/10/29/new-uci-arts-dean-inspired-by-oc/|access-date=2021-03-09|website=Orange County Register|language=en-US}} until resigning.{{Cite web|date=2017-03-08|title=Sexual harassment: records show how University of California faculty target students|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/sexual-harassment-university-california-faculty-target-students|access-date=2021-03-09|website=the Guardian|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=At least 20 sexual misconduct cases against Univ. of Calif. faculty over a 3-year span|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/university-of-california-had-at-least-20-sexual-misconduct-cases-against-faculty-over-a-3-year-span/|access-date=2021-03-09|website=www.cbsnews.com|date=9 March 2017 |language=en-US}} He remains on the faculty of UCI.

Currently, he is president of the Noah Purifoy Foundation located in Joshua Tree, California and is on the Board of Directors for Project Hope Alliance (whose mission is to end homelessness) and California Lawyers for the Arts. Lewis has been active in the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, the College Art Association, Bronx Museum of the Arts[https://art.arts.uci.edu/joseph-s-lewis-iii] Joseph S. Lewis III UCI and has written art criticism for Art in America, Contemporânea, LA Weekly and Artforum.