Norm Magnusson
Norm Magnusson
Pandemic Heroes, 2020
Cast aluminum and acrylic paint
96 x 36 x 4 inches
$10,000
"This long running series, “On This Site Stood,” subverts the well-understood format of the historical marker to add weight of historical importance to some of today’s most pressing political and social issues."
Norm Magnusson has been making these “historical” markers for a number of years now but the pandemic and the protests and the police brutality and the economic imbalances have made them more relevant for him than ever before. Magnusson has shown in galleries and museums in New York and New Zealand, London, Paris and all over the United States. His work is in private and museum collections, including MoMA in NYC, and has been reviewed in the NY Times, Washington Post, the Utne Reader, Sculpture Magazine, on TrendHunter.com and in other national and international magazines, websites and blogs.
He received a NYFA Fellowship for sculpture, Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants for sculpture and for painting, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council grant, and a NYSCA grant, both for public art installation and he was awarded the “Best Art in Public Places” award from the Ulster County Executive and Arts Mid-Hudson. As a curator, he has brought together exhibitions such as FU, which examined US fair use laws as they pertain to visual artists, The Museum of Controversial Art which re-created the most controversial art through the ages; Beautiful Nonsense, a survey of absurd objects and art, abc@WFG, a survey of text-based art, and Abstract Evocative at WAAM in Woodstock, NY.
He received a NYFA Fellowship for sculpture, Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants for sculpture and for painting, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council grant, and a NYSCA grant, both for public art installation and he was awarded the “Best Art in Public Places” award from the Ulster County Executive and Arts Mid-Hudson. As a curator, he has brought together exhibitions such as FU, which examined US fair use laws as they pertain to visual artists, The Museum of Controversial Art which re-created the most controversial art through the ages; Beautiful Nonsense, a survey of absurd objects and art, abc@WFG, a survey of text-based art, and Abstract Evocative at WAAM in Woodstock, NY.