THE ARTIST

David Schwartz
(A.K.A. David Made It)

My work is sentimental, playful and colorful. I explore the emotional weight we attach to everyday objects, particularly the music, media, toys, and cultural artifacts that shape our memories. I’m interested in the unexpected feeling that occurs when we encounter something from our past: an old cassette, toy, collectable, a boombox, or an object we had nearly forgotten. Through sculpture, I enlarge, distort, preserve, and reimagine these familiar forms, transforming personal and collective nostalgia into something new.

My path to sculpture has been unconventional. I attended art school in Minneapolis before leaving to pursue music, which led to the extraordinary opportunity to work with music icon Prince. We recorded, performed, toured and wrote songs together at Paisley Park. I’m featured on 2 of his albums and a couple music videos one of which The Daisy Chain - (article on my years with Prince). That experience established a multidisciplinary approach that has remained central to my career. I was such a fan of 1980’s and 90’s album covers that I later built a career in graphic design, branding, and art direction, beginning with album artwork and eventually creating campaigns and visual identities for artists and major brands such as Netflix, Amazon, Marvel, Beats By Dre, Killer Mike, L.L. Cool J’s Rock The Bells, Paris Hilton, Akon, Gucci Mane and many more. 

My current practice brings these experiences together. Drawing heavily from music and the visual culture of the ‘80s and ’90s, I use materials including clay, 3D printing, crystal, resin and acrylic to transform recognizable objects into sculptural artifacts.

THE FIRST (Large O.G.) RHYME CAPSULE SCULPTURE

 This first piece in the Rhyme Capsule series featured a marble podium figure presenting the boombox over his head. The base figure is made of solid Marble and is the result of a tandem collaboration between myself and artist Isaac Z. The entire sculpture weighs 1,200lbs (the boombox alone weighs 188lbs) and took 15 months to complete.

The boombox itself was made with 96 pieces of high clarity 100% lead free optic crystal. Permanently sealed inside the capsule walls are 180 authentic Hip Hop tapes released between 1980-2000 which coincides with the cassette boombox era. Included are albums that inspired me personally, some that influenced the masses, and some that “heads” can all agree are classics. A few of the tapes have become collectors items and rare to come by; almost all are albums but a few singles are in the mix. 

There will only be a few variations of the crystal boombox made but this first particular piece with the marble figure base, as a set, was the first and an original 1-of-1.