July 26, 2009

"New York magazine derided [Dash Snow] for making art by ejaculating on copies of The New York Post...."

"... he blew up that section of the article, ejaculated on the copy and displayed it at an art show in Los Angeles."

Dash Snow, dead of a drug overdose, at 27.
His sadness and his money and his drugs were a powerful dynamic, said Jack Walls, a close friend of Mr. Snow’s who is a former lover of the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe: the sadness was abetted by the drugs, the drugs abetted by the money.

Mr. Walls distinguished Mr. Snow from working-class addicts like William S. Burroughs, Herbert Huncke — and himself. “It was like his money never ran out,” Mr. Walls said. “When it came to doing drugs, he could do these marathons for days and days on end. In my day, in Huncke’s day, in Burroughs’s day, when we wanted a fix, we had to go work — we couldn’t just sit around getting high for three straight weeks.”

46 comments:

Bryan Townsend said...

Someone should really send New York a memo that avant-garde outraging of the bourgeoisie is over. Waaay over.

Jeff with one 'f' said...

The great-grandson of Dominique de Menil of the Menil Museum and the Rothko Chapel.

How apt.

Kevin said...

Yawn.... Another no-talent poseur trying to épater le bourgeoisie. Don't these people get tired of this?

Fred4Pres said...

This is not even the least bit outrageous, just boring and juvenile. I guess not only the good die young.

Diamondhead said...

Oh, the scintillating shop talk he'll have with Rembrandt, with Michelangelo.

Jason (the commenter) said...

He made collages.

Hysterical!

hawkeyedjb said...

What an interesting and unique character! Drunkeness, incivility, lack of self-control, and a resume that includes "retired writer of graffiti."

Good to know that I still have a shot at a 3-page NY Times obit.

save_the_rustbelt said...

Did he have federal funding?

Joe said...

Jerking off is now art? When is it going to become an Olympic event?

Steven said...

Well, it's already a UN event. Close enough.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Dash Snow, dead of a drug overdose, at 27.


And we are supposed to care because.....?

Randy said...

Long obit for such a short life. Tempted to say it is very kind of the NY Times to spend so much valuable space on such a relative nonentity but perhaps they sold it to the survivors (family & dealers: drug & art).

Leland said...

I'm not sure which is worse:

A guy dies at 27 with his major accomplishment being he jerked off.

Or

People were so impressed by his accomplishment they placed it on display for mutual admiration.

Cedarford said...

A wastrel with money to burn. Part of the Schlumberger Family who are more important to the global petroleum business than the Rockefellers ever were, or Halliburton is now. Prior to Microsoft, THE money machine...
He comes from the brilliant artistocratic French banker side of the family - the de Menils - not the series of geniuses in technology that started with the Schlumberger brothers and Henri Doll. Perpetuated with the Firm's pick from the cream of American, European, Indian, Arab, and Asian high tech scholars.

That they patronized arts with their billions is nice, but peripheral to who they are.

Or, perhaps more importantly, who Dash Snow never was, and knew he never could be...

Danny said...

Good riddance. How the heck does a talentless poseur become the "toast" of the NYC art world? It suggests that the whole "art world" is just a bunch of losers, who dont know what good art is.

traditionalguy said...

A terrible waste of a human life. Apparently all the money in the world could not buy his way out of the pain of living his life without discovering a purpose that brought him peace.

KCFleming said...

Dash Snow: Vidi, Veni, Mori.

Chip S. said...

I'm most struck by the fact that the "newspaper of record" is unaware of the idiocy of the characterization of William S. Burroughs as "working class." Those layers of fact-checkers, having been relieved of the burden of continually digging into the past of the Governor of Alaska, should have been able to catch this howler easily.

Diamondhead said...

Pogo, wasn't Veni the title of one of the abovementioned pieces?

KCFleming said...

Dunno.

I couldn't be bothered to read any more about the little jackoff than Althouse posted.

If so, Snow and I, like western languages, share a Latin root, but, like western nations, little else.

hdhouse said...

a critic of the Post's style perhaps?

Diamondhead said...

Unsuccessful joke on my part.

chickelit said...

Dash Snow: Vidi, Veni, Mori.

LOL Pogo!

Titushopeyouarehavingalovelyweekend said...

I admit I read this three page obit with fascination.

The kind of fascination of watching a car crash.

Poor Uma. I hope she is doing ok.

Alex said...

Tell me Althouse, why the FUCK should I care about this sick degenerate? Good fucking riddance to another drug-addicted, degenerate loser. One less waste of O2.

Leather Daddy said...

I would have made him lick the paper clean. Performance art.

rhhardin said...

It's a threatened art form if newspapers disappear.

An art habitat problem.

Titushopeyouarehavingalovelyweekend said...

Leather Daddy that is disgusting but I love it.

rhhardin said...

Vidi, Veni, Mori.

Morior is a deponent verb, along with eiaculor.

That may be a better parallel.

It does seem passive in form.

Unknown said...

You should pitch a book "Stupid Artist Tricks." You'd make a million, LOL!

Moose said...

Once you start down that road of "shocking the bourgeoisie", itc's all downhill. Leatherdaddy's comment is mild criticism in this context.

Anonymous said...

Ann, it's both disturbing yet strangely comforting that you have "bodily fluids" as one of your labels.

http://VocalMinority.typepad.com
The Jewish Republican's Web Sanctuary

Revenant said...

I kinda doubt we lost the next Dali here.

Anonymous said...

He's was just another jack-off.

Unknown said...

What's a Dash Snow? Is that some new thing at Urbandictionary.com?

-jcr

Johanna Lapp said...

So you're telling me that the only part of Perez Hilton's schtick that was even slightly amusing -- celebrity photos lathered with semen -- was totally ripped off from Snow?

Bitch, please!

John said...

Check out his Wikipedia page and you'll see why he got the obit. Boy, did he come from the right family.

Unknown said...

You guys are unfairly understating the genius of Dash Snow's art. Not only did he spew onto copies of the New York Post, but he also took photographs of oral sex, and lines of cocaine on girls' bodies (probably their naughty parts -- that's where I like my lines of cocaine). So there. Now you know the kind of genius you're mocking.

Edmund Ironside said...

Since about 1920, this guys lifestyle has been a cliche. How do you get lauded as avant guard when everything about you is a cliche? I thought avant guard had to be at the forefront? There were people doing this stuff in Huntsville AL in the 1980s. You know, Huntsville, that international hotbed of artistic discovery.

dcbyron said...

Didn't Vito Acconci cover this ground in the early 70s?

Rabel said...

The article was worth reading just for this line "He spent about five days partying, not sleeping, and then went out to the Hamptons and slept for an entire day,” said a friend who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a code of silence adopted by some after Mr. Snow’s death."

Known Unknown said...

Described as a 'doting father'.

A dead doting father. Should've planned that intervention a few days earlier folks ...

fboness said...

he did show keen insight into the newspaper business. What would he think of this obituary?

Hucbald said...

There's an obit worth reading, and reading with satisfaction. Apropos, non? The avant garde "art" world has bukkaked civilization with stupid since its inception.

This was no tragedy, it was taking out the garbage.

Khazar-khum said...

I guess you do have to be rich to be a starving "artiste" these days.

Unknown said...

I'm graduating with my MFA this semester. Things like this leave me with the impression that to be a "real artiste'" I need to loose 70lbs, stop bathing, develop a dangerous drug habit, and have different parents.

I feel like sucking on the end of a shotgun now....