colorRiot: an exhibition colorful times

Sweet sweet color, the pools in which artists bathe the souls of their viewers and themselves. 

Some artists dole it out as if there was only a thimbleful of it available in all of creation, and others, the ones collected here, drop it down unmercifully, like a pigment monsoon.

This exhibition is a celebration of those artists and that impulse.

Bask in it.

Norm Magnusson, curator (short bio below)

(n.b.: Though most artists are excited to be included in this exhibition, not all who are listed below have been approached yet.)

Gabe Brown

(3, above)

Deborah Kass

(2, above)

Bruce Nauman

Vincent Pomilio

Ruby Palmer

Laura Gurton

Heather Hutchison

Thomas Huber

Stevan Jennis

Margeaux Walter

Stephen Niccolls

Mariela Bisson

Elisa Pritzker

Portia Munson

Alex Afix

Andrew Faris

Eduardo Terrazas

Helen Dardik

Herbert Beyer

Leon Lester

Martina Nehrling

Stephen Westfall

Norm Magnusson

Norm Magnusson is mildly renowned all over the world.

He’s received a NYFA Fellowship (2014-2015) for sculpture, Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants for sculpture (2016-2017) and for painting (1998-1999), and a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council grant (2008-2009) and a NYSCA grant (through the Center for Sustainable Rural Communities - 2014), both for public art installation.

As a visual artist, he has shown in galleries and museums in New York and New Zealand, London and Paris and all over the United States. His work is in private and museum collections around the world, including NY’s MoMA (Franklin Furnace Artist’s Book Collection) and he’s been reviewed everywhere from the NY Times to the Washington Post to the Utne Reader, the “Center for Sustainable Practices in the Arts” magazine, Sculpture magazine, TrendHunter.com and many other national and international magazines, websites and blogs.

As a curator, he has brought together exhibitions such as “FU”, which examined and illustrated U.S. fair use laws as they pertain to visual artists; “The Museum of Controversial Art”, which re-created some of the most controversial art through the ages; “Beautiful nonsense”, which consists of objects and art meant to challenge the intellectual sure-footedness with which we move through our everyday lives; and “abc@WFG”, a survey of text-based art.

As an educator, he’s taught art to under-privileged kids in NYC and over-privileged kids in Woodstock, NY.  He created a 12-class curriculum entitled “Art that’s changed the way I see the world around me” in which artists and gallerists and rock stars and film makers and authors and academics came and spoke on that topic with visual and audio aids.

For the last 6 years, on August 29, the date of its world premier in Woodstock, NY, Magnusson has produced an anniversary concert of John Cage’s 4’33” at the WAAM Museum in that town.

Recently, he’s returned to his first creative love, acting; starring in community theater productions of plays by David Mamet and David Ives, and as Pozzo in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” Most recently, he performed in the The Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck’s production of Eve Ensler’s “A memory, a monologue, a rant, and a prayer.” He wrote his first ever words and images monologue “The signs in our lives” and performed it at the Hudson Literary Festival in 2014 and reprised it in the summer of 2015; in November, 2016, he debuted his "Swipe right" monologue  at the Coccoon Theater in Poughkeepsie.

He is the co-founder of FISHtheMOUSEmedia, a developer of educational apps for iOS; where his “Animal alphabet” app was widely acclaimed and honored with a prestigious Gold award from the Parents’ Choice Foundation.

He serves on the board of  directors of two 501(c)3 organizations, Young Rhinebeck and GoodJTDeeds and is the father of 3 wonderful kids, all of whom are especially talented at seeing the world around them with appreciative eyes and a grateful heart. He reckons this is his proudest accomplishment.