Dash Snow photographed young people having sex and taking drugs, formed objects out of torn telephone directories, decorated pictures of police officers and authority figures with his own sperm, became famous as a result, and died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27.
(...) Continue readingDash Snow led an unsettled life
Dash Snow was born Dashiell A. Snow in New York City on 27 July 1981. His parents were Taya Thurman - a half-sister of actress Uma Thurman (born 1970) - and Christopher Snow, whilst his grandparents were the Buddhism expert Robert Thurman (born 1941) and artist Marie-Christophe de Menil; his great-grandparents were John de Menil (1904-1973) and Dominique de Menil (1908-1997), philanthropists, patrons and founders of the Houston-based Menil Collection. Dash Snow spent his childhood with his two siblings Maxwell and Caroline on New York's Upper West Side and entered a residential treatment centre for children with oppositional defiant disorder at the age of 13. He turned away from his family early on and lived on the streets, and at the age of 18 he married the Corsican artist Agathe Aparru (born 1976), who continued to perform as Agathe Snow even after their divorce. In 2007, Dash Snow and his new partner Jade Berreau had their daughter Secret Midnight Magic Nico.
Artistic roots in the graffiti scene
Dash Snow was already interested in photography as a teenager and began taking pictures of places that he might otherwise not be able to remember the next day. In the 1990s, he was a member of the IRAK Graffiti Crew, whose name referred to shoplifting - also known as ‘racking’ in the USA. To sign his street art, Snow used the tag SACE or SACER, which became the subject of a legal dispute between his family and the fast-food company McDonald's after his death, because some McDonald's branches in Europe and Asia used Snow's tag for decorative purposes. However, the lawsuit was later dropped. In 2005, he was able to exhibit his photographs for the first time, mainly small-format Polaroids showing himself and his circle of friends having sex, taking drugs and engaging in orgies of violence in public spaces. In 2006, the renowned Wall Street Journal featured him alongside other young artists such as Rosson Crow (born 1982), Keegan McHargue (born 1982), Barney Kulok (born 1981), Zane Lewis (born 1981), Ryan Trecartin (born 1981) and Jordan Wolfson (born 1980), and that same year, Dash Snow was also represented at the Whitney Biennial.
Early death from a drug frenzy
Dash Snow caused a stir in 2007 with an installation that he created together with Dan Colen from shredded telephone directories in the gallery of Jeffrey Deitch (born 1952); the exhibition was called ‘Nest’ or ‘Hamster's Nest’. Outside the USA, his work attracted particular interest in Berlin, where it was exhibited several times.
Dash Snow died of a heroin overdose in a New York hotel on 13 July 2009. Because he was only 27 years old, he is sometimes counted among the so-called Club 27.
Dash Snow - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz: