Diane Rosenstein is pleased to announce Models of Disorder, a solo exhibition of sculpture and works on paper by Los Angeles-based artist David Schafer. 

Models of Disorder will present selected works (2002 – 2012) in an installation that asks the gallery viewer to actively listen in a shared aural and visual space.   David Schafer: Models of Disorder opens Saturday, January 31st with a reception for the artist from 6:00 – 8:00 pm.  This is Schafer’s first exhibition with the gallery.

David Schafer is a visual artist who works with sculpture and sound, is guided in this body of work by an ongoing investigation into contemporary manifestations of male hysteria. 

This exhibition will present ten sculptural installations and related collages, drawings, and works on paper.   The title,  Models of Disorder, references the French 19th neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot who attempted to establish “male hysteria” as a legitimate diagnosis. Charcot had genuinely come to believe that men were susceptible to the same nervous disorders as were projected onto women at that time.  In his practice, David Schafer reworks these subjects within the frameworks of identity and cultural memory.  He often incorporates humor and employs the subversive anarchy of multiple references to Modernism and pop culture, using subjects as diverse as the painter Barnett Newman, The Three Stooges, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and architect Marcel Breuer.

This exhibition notably includes; What Should A Museum Sound Like (2010), What Should a Painter Do? (2011), and Separated United Forms (Scale Model), (2009): major sculptures originally created for institutional installations, and now shown in a gallery setting for the first time.  Separated United Forms (Scale Model), (2009), for a permanent public commission for the Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, is a sampled and remixed Henry Moore sculpture in bronze, only previously seen in Under The Influence: Art-Inspired Art at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA.  What Should a Museum Sound Like?, originally presented in conjunction with the 2010 Whitney Biennial, involves a text written in 1963 by Marcel Breuer, the architect for the Whitney Museum. Schafer worked with a voice actor to record this text, and also translated Breuer’s floor plans and elevation drawings of that building into a series of composed sounds that are presented utilizing a digitally modeled speaker cabinet in the form of the Whitney Museum’s building. Schafer is interested in Breuer’s declarations about the Museum, specifically his opposition to it being represented as a place of business or light entertainment. This sound work questions the relevance, and the autonomy of those ideas today, as well as explores the relationship of language to form and space. What Should a Painter Do? (2011) is a large stained wood sculpture incorporating 3-channel sound that references Barnett Newman’s series of paintings “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue” (1966-1970).  Schafer excerpts and modifies Newman’s interviews from the 1973 film “Painters Painting” for one channel, while the other 2 channels are processed versions of the same track. All 3 channels are emitted simultaneously and looped bringing a quality of “negative formalism” to the sculpture.

The artist will also debut three works never before shown, including Untitled Expression: In The Year 2525 (2009), a powder-coated aluminum sculpture with audio playback and five small framed collages that resequence and remix sounds and lyrics from the 1969 hit song by Zager and Evans.

David Schafer (USA, b. 1955) received his MFA from the University of Texas, Austin (1983).   He has exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe, including The Sculpture Center, New York (2004), Contemporary Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and The Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA.  His works on paper have been shown at The Drawing Center, New York and Mass MOCA, North Adams, Mass, among others.  Schafer performs as “DSE”, a platform for the production of and dissemination of electronic noise and live signal manipulation. This includes live improvisational and composed sound performances, collaborations, events, and sound transmission sculptures and installations.  He is a published writer and recent publications include “Separated United Forms” by Charta Press, Milan, and “Site of Sound #2: Of Architecture and the Ear” edited by Brandon LaBelle, Errant Bodies Press, Berlin. His sound performance in conjunction with the 2010 Whitney Biennial was recently included in “Noise Channels: Glitch and Error in Digital Culture”, by Peter Krapp, Minnesota Press. Upcoming projects include “The Schoenberg Soundways,” at USC this March 2015.   Mr. Schafer is on the faculty of Art Center College of Art and Design, Pasadena, CA and the Roski School of Fine Arts, USC, Los Angeles, CA. He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.