Researching Max Norman

Norman was born in Sundsvall, Medelpad, he currently resides in Prague. He paints visions and dreamlike images as accurately as possible, which results in paintings with a photorealistic quality. His works are intended to spread virally among social networks on the Internet; his art and stunts often deal with everyday events spiced up with a touch of the absurd.

A few examples of such works created for the Internet are the illustrated essay "The LED (minor) Artcrime Tutorial" and the Moose graffiti stunt, where the artist sneaks up on a wild moose and paints graffiti on it. His sculpture and plastic arts projects have received some exposure in Sweden, such as his art project that consisted of a woodpecker placed on a traffic camera on the E4 near Stockvik.In another of Max Magnus Norman's art projects the artist created an unknown (but huge) number of plastic monkeys, about 1 metres in length. One night in early May 2009 he put up these monkeys in different settings all over the small city Sundsvall. One monkey was riding a crocodile in the middle of the central stream Selångersån and one was placed upon a traffic light making it look like the monkey controlled the traffic, some monkeys were even placed under water. A few of these monkeys still remain, amongst other one flying 20 metres up in the air, holding a beer can above the intersection Köpmangatan-Thulegatan.

In 2008, a statue of his, "Kuken ska ha sitt," which includes a 30 cm. long penis, caused some local outcry which was noticed by the Swedish press: the "obscene sculpture" drew notice and commentary from the two largest Swedish papers, Aftonbladet and Expressen. As it happened, Norman's sculpture coincided with a few other "phallic" Swedish works of art that year, including a full-frontal nude Jesus; the fact that Norman's sculpture was provided with a warning for the young enhanced its reputation, as well as that of the artist.