Norm Magnusson

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Norm Magnusson (born March 20, 1960) is a New York-based artist and political activist.

Founder 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.

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 and numerous other public and private collections, he has exhibited at these museum and for many years before it closed, at the infamous East Village-born Bridgewater/Lustberg Gallery in NYC. His historical markers were the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum's 2007 Main Street Sculpture Project, a show entitled "On this site stood."

He was honored with a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant in 1999.

[edit] References

• Beasley, Jim, Norm Magnusson, American Painter. Springfield, MO: The Springfield Museum of Art, 2000.
• The first published reference to funism, from New York's The Villager, August, 1992
• Second (and better) published reference to funism, from New York's The Villager, September, 1992

[edit] External links

• The artist's website (funism.com).
• Exhibition details from The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
• Artist's page on the Van Brunt Gallery website
• Artist's page on the Bridgewater Fine Arts website
• Artist's page on theBlumenfeld/Lustberg Fine Art site
• The artist's I-75 Project website