David Schafer is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, sound, and installation. Influenced by urban planning, consumer, and capitalist systems, he is interested in the relational structures of the built environment and the market and ideological forces that shape them. His work reframes found motifs, sound, music, and structures to investigate and rework systems of historical and cultural memory, built space, and language. This includes physical materials combined with related processes in digital media, algorithmic processing, 3D modeling, image, and sound manipulation.

Selected one person exhibitions and projects include Phase Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., Samuel Freeman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., Glendale College Art Gallery, Glendale, CA., Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., Studio 10 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY., MoMA-PS1, Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York, NY. Selected group exhibitions include Royale Projects, Foyer-LA, JOAN, Los Angeles, CA., FiveCarGarage, Los Angeles, CA., Angles Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., Sarah Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL., The Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY., Space Debris, Istanbul, Turkey, Tent Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, NL., Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA., The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD., Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD., Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY., Hudson River Museum, NY., Whitney Museum, NY.

Schafer’s Reflected Terrain is a recent public commission for the city of San Gabriel Valley, CA. His Separated United Forms, a One Percent for the Arts commission is permanently installed at the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, CA., with a catalog published by Charta Press, Milan. Other temporary public projects include Foyer-LA at Mandarin Plaza, Richard Telles Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., The USC campus, Los Angeles, CA., Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, Public Art Fund of NY commission for City Hall Park, New York City, NY., Public Art Fund of NY commission for MetroTech Center, Brooklyn, NY., and Public Art Fund of NY commission for Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn, NY.

Schafer has performed at LaCita, Los Angeles, CA., Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA., David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., Samuel Freeman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA., Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions L.A.C.E., Los Angeles, CA., Printed Matter, New York City, NY., The Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY., Roulette, Brooklyn, NY., The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY., Mildreds Lane, Scranton, PA. His sound works have been included in curated radio programs for RadioPhrenia, Glasgow, Scotland., Stress FM, Lisbon, Portugal, Online Radio Program-websynradio, Paris, France, Radio Village Normade, Marseille, France, United Nations Radio Network, Berlin, Germany, California State University Broadcasting, Northridge, CA., The Transmission Arts and John Cage Trust, New York City, NY., WMFU radio, East Orange, New Jersey.

David Schafer’s work has appeared in numerous publications including Artforum, Art in America, Art Issues, ArtNet, Art Papers, Art Week, The Baltimore Sun, The Brooklyn Rail, The Chicago Tribune, Landscape Architecture, LA Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, Metropolis, New Art Examiner, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wire, and The Washington Post.

Schafer is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, the COLA Cultural Trailblazers Award Department of Cultural Affairs, LA, CA., Center for Cultural Innovation Grant, Los Angeles, CA., Visions and Voices Arts Initiative USC, Los Angeles, CA., National Endowment for the Arts, New York City, NY., Sculpture Chicago Artist in Residence, Chicago, ILL., Artist in Residence Public Art Fund, New York City, NY. Schafer is currently a Professor of Fine Art at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA. where he founded the Fine Art Sound Lab and has received numerous awards for his teaching. Schafer has previously been a visiting professor at CalArts, Otis College of Art and Design, USC, USC Riverside, School of Visual Arts, Cooper Union, Parsons, Rutgers University, and Cornell University.