The Last Dash
- Author: Faith-Ann Young
- Posted on: Wednesday July 15, 2009 at 1:00 PM
- Filed under: exclusive, art
Dash in white in middle
His name kind of hit you like a bullet: Dash Snow. So did his art. A devil-may-care rogue who enthralled the international art scene for his gritty, f&ck-all, organic collage art, sculpture, graffiti and photography, Dash was an artist born of a noble art lineage but who moved to the Lower East side in rebellion, partied a lot, created a lot, and partied some more.
The result? He'd suck in the societal and cultural tidbits, dirt, and bullsh*t that he'd inhale in the alleys, scoff, and throw it back out in pools of telephone book paper shreds, semi-pornographic snapshots of the grit of a party post-dusk, and collages of friends in Polaroid-muted color. Provocative, grotesque, slipshod.
Perez gallery exhibit, Art Basel 2008
Some hated it, some said it wasn't art, some smiled and felt it was brilliant.
Regardless, Dash Snow was an influencer in the NYC downtown scene that was blistering frenetically of untapped energy, unbridled hedonism, and lines and lines and lines of creativity.
He did drugs, played hard, and chronicled it all- the product of which made a bunch of money on the interational art circuit while galleries like Satchi and Satchi in London and Peres Gallery in LA and Berlin flaunted his work. In other words, he kind of laughed, moped, burbed, and then then hurled through the glass walls of the social contract.
He got married, divorced, and then fell in love with his girlfriend, who then had a baby girl that they named Secret.
Perez gallery exhibit, Art Basel 2008
Some of you have heard already, some of you haven't ever even heard who the hell Dash is/was/couldhavebeen - but Dash Snow passed away on the 13th by himself in a hotel in downtown Manhattan. Age 27, due to a heroin overdose.
Dash with fellow artists Dan Colen and Ryan McGinley
Some say it was inevitable, some say heartbreaking, others say deserving, others lamented that no one seemed to do anything to stop the guy from going off the deep-end (though it was clear he had a painful addiction which he was trying to rid) since his lifestyle fed his art so furiously. (reminiscent of the sad, early, unexpected deaths of other muses Kurt Cobain or Heath Ledger; said one blogger prior to his death: ‘Snow – you’re a cliché, but no one will tell you that because they’re gonna make a bundle on you first.’”)
It's a heavy topic; we'll let the art speak for itself and leave it up to you to decide what else to think.
William Carlos Williams, "To Elsie" or "The pure products of America / go crazy" from Spring and all (1923)
The pure products of America
go crazy-
mountain folk from Kentuckyor the ribbed north end of
Jersey
with its isolate lakes andvalleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves
old names
and promiscuity betweendevil-may-care men who have taken
to railroading
out of sheer lust of adventure-and young slatterns, bathed
in filth
from Monday to Saturdayto be tricked out that night
with gauds
from imaginations which have nopeasant traditions to give them
character
but flutter and flauntsheer rags succumbing without
emotion
save numbed terrorunder some hedge of choke-cherry
or viburnum-
which they cannot express-Unless it be that marriage
perhaps
with a dash of Indian bloodwill throw up a girl so desolate
so hemmed round
with disease or murderthat she'll be rescued by an
agent--
reared by the state andsent out at fifteen to work in
some hard-pressed
house in the suburbs-some doctor's family, some Elsie
voluptuous water
expressing with brokenbrain the truth about us-
her great
ungainly hips and flopping breastsaddressed to cheap
jewelry
and rich young men with fine eyesas if the earth under our feet
were
an excrement of some skyand we degraded prisoners
destined
to hunger until we eat filthwhile the imagination strains
after deer
going by fields of goldenrod inthe stifling heat of September
somehow
it seems to destroy usIt is only in isolate flecks that
something
is given offNo one
to witness
and adjust, no one to drive the car
More information on his art: Deitch Projects
Images: NY Mag, Brooklyn Rail, Getty Images.
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COMMENTS
“ Thank you for the fair portrait on Dash... amazing artist and amazing person. ”
“ Thank you for the fair portrait on Dash... amazing artist and amazing person. ”
“ interesting :) ”
