Norm Magnusson
Encyclopedia
Norm Magnusson is a New York
-based artist
and political activist.
Founder, in 1991, of the art movement funism, he began his career creating allegorical animal paintings with pointed social commentaries. Eventually became more and more interested in political art and its potential for persuasion.
This led him away from the canvas and into the public realm where he created short videos that ran on U.S. national television prior to 2004's U.S. general election
, viral emails and roadside historical markers with contemporary social content. The markers are part of the artist's proposed "The I-75 Project". Scheduled for 2010, it will place one marker in each of the 50 rest areas up and down the length of Interstate 75, which runs from Michigan through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia to its ultimate destination in Hialeah, Florida.
In the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art
(Franklin Furnace Artist's Book Archive), The Springfield Museum of Art, The Anchorage Museum of History and Art
, The Pember Museum http://www.pembermuseum.com/ and numerous other public and private collections, he has exhibited at these museums and for many years before it closed, at the infamous East Village
-born Bridgewater/Lustberg Gallery in NYC. His sculptures of historical markers were shown as the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum's 2007 Main Street Sculpture Project, a show entitled "On this site stood." In his review of that exhibition for The New York Times, Ben Gennochio called Magnusson "The Michael Moore of the highways" for the very liberal "unsparing and pitiless candor" of his art, which focuses "our attention on pressing contemporary social and political issues."
He was honored with a Pollock-Krasner Foundation
grant in 1999 and a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2008 for the realization of "On this site stood - lower Manhattan" a project to put 'historical' plaques with contemporary social content around lower Manhattan in summer 2009. (link below)
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
-based artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and political activist.
Founder, in 1991, of the art movement funism, he began his career creating allegorical animal paintings with pointed social commentaries. Eventually became more and more interested in political art and its potential for persuasion.
This led him away from the canvas and into the public realm where he created short videos that ran on U.S. national television prior to 2004's U.S. general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
, viral emails and roadside historical markers with contemporary social content. The markers are part of the artist's proposed "The I-75 Project". Scheduled for 2010, it will place one marker in each of the 50 rest areas up and down the length of Interstate 75, which runs from Michigan through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia to its ultimate destination in Hialeah, Florida.
In the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(Franklin Furnace Artist's Book Archive), The Springfield Museum of Art, The Anchorage Museum of History and Art
Anchorage Museum of History and Art
The Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center is a museum located in downtown Anchorage in the U.S. state of Alaska. Beginning as a public-private partnership to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Alaska purchase, it opened in 1968 with an exhibition of 60 borrowed Alaska paintings and a collection...
, The Pember Museum http://www.pembermuseum.com/ and numerous other public and private collections, he has exhibited at these museums and for many years before it closed, at the infamous East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
-born Bridgewater/Lustberg Gallery in NYC. His sculptures of historical markers were shown as the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum's 2007 Main Street Sculpture Project, a show entitled "On this site stood." In his review of that exhibition for The New York Times, Ben Gennochio called Magnusson "The Michael Moore of the highways" for the very liberal "unsparing and pitiless candor" of his art, which focuses "our attention on pressing contemporary social and political issues."
He was honored with a Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Pollock-Krasner Foundation
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expressionist painter and the widow of fellow painter Jackson...
grant in 1999 and a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2008 for the realization of "On this site stood - lower Manhattan" a project to put 'historical' plaques with contemporary social content around lower Manhattan in summer 2009. (link below)