You are invited to an Artist’s Talk: David Schafer in Conversation with Lauren Mackler. Lauren Mackler is a curator, graphic designer, and founder of PUBLIC FICTION (the museum of), an exhibition space and journal in Northeast Los Angeles. Schafer’s exhibition, Models of Disorder presents selected works in an installation that asks the gallery viewer to actively listen in a shared aural and visual space. The exhibition is currently on view at the gallery through March 14th.

The event is open to the public, by reservation. Please RSVP by email to sarine@dianerosenstein.com

About the Exhibition:

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

"Models Of Disorder"  presents ten sculptural installations and related collages, drawings, and works on paper. The title, "Models of Disorder," references the French 19th century 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.

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.

Lauren Mackler is an artist, curator and graphic designer who established Public Fiction in 2010 shortly after she relocated to L.A. from the East Coast. Public Fiction (the museum of) occupies an unmarked storefront in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Neither a commercial gallery nor a not-for-profit organization, it is a space for artistic experimentation in the form of exhibitions, performances, artist talks, screenings, and a quarterly publication. A nexus for local artists, critics, curators, and academics, Public Fiction provides a much-needed counterpoint to the commercial ventures that dominate the L.A. art scene. The project began as an exploration of the ways design and editorial principles might influence how we make exhibitions. In curating Public Fiction, Mackler is equally influenced by writing, reading, researching, thinking, collaborating, and making. Over the course of a three-month period, exhibitions and events develop in relation to a set theme or topic. Last year, Public Fiction was included in 2014 Made In L.A. at The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the organization also produced Al’s Grand Hotel, "an inaccurate reenactment” of Allen Rupperberg’s 1971 project, for Frieze Projects (2014 Frieze New York).