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Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
American Apparel Ad Spoofer Becomes An Art Critic

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saralapua
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
I don't want to play down the loss to his family. He was loved and will be missed by those who knew him, regardless of the choices that lead to his death. But I would love to see this amount of heated back-and-forth dialogue linked to the next 27 year-old American kid that dies in one of our on-going wars.
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HiredGoons
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
You know what else is tragic? The young artists this is going to influence into thinking that overdosing on heroin is a good way to get famous.
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SidAndFinancy
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
To sum up, then, this kind of death is tragic regardless to whom it happens, especially for family and friends. Yet, in retrospect, it is also clear that he sowed the seed of his own destruction.
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SarahHeartburn
07/14/09

@SidAndFinancy: And it's nothing new. Deeply sorry for his family and his mother, but people with means who get themselves into trouble let's say irritate me a bit. There's a thread going on over on Jezebel about an Intervention episode, and a lot of people point out that most families can only afford good quality drug therapy with outside help. I knew a bunch of the rich kid druggie bunch back in the 80's in NY. There are sadder cases to mourn, gifted or not.
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Id_Molotov
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
I didn't know Dash, but I know the scene he hung out in and I know the type of people, and actually know some of the people he hung out with. What sucks is that these super-cool people can do nothing but give each other endless handjobs. Everything and everyone is always great. It's all cool. It's all good. The worst thing you can do in these circles of "friends" is to interject a little criticism or point out that someone is fucking up... if you do you are shunned. So here's to all Dashes friends that didn't have the guts to tell him he was fucking his life away on junk!
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tailpipebananna
07/14/09

@Id_Molotov: that's the most honest post on here so far. Word to you. That's SO true...
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maevemealone
07/14/09

@Id_Molotov: I was thinking about this as I was out for a walk in the park. I've seen too many in this crowd of artists party along with the addict. As long as you're fun enough to party with and you get some reflected glory, nobody will say an uncool word to them. Oh, they might send him home or leave when they get too messy to be anymore fun, but they'll just do it all again with them the next day. And they're the first ones to say they miss their dearly lost friend and miss the point entirely. If you are their friend, you'd tell them to stop, you wouldn't enable them and you'd try to help.
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Baroness
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
The Times reports that Christophe de Menil, his grandmother, has confirmed it. And that he had been in rehab as recently as March. Very sad. It looks like he might have been at least trying to kick the habit.
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bboston88
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
A privileged "artist" who pissed away his life on drugs. So unique! I really can't be bothered to care about people like this. The difference between him and Billy Bob in Alabama was his birthright. A few dollars would separate him from just being a dude in a trailer with an oxycontin problem.
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HiredGoons
07/14/09

@bboston88: that, and the lack of irony behind Billy Bob's mustache.
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HiredGoons
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
One long wall of his apartment is lined with shelves on which he keeps his alphabetized collection of art books and binders cataloguing all of his work and Snow’s. "Because you never know what’s going to happen with Dash," McGinley says. (NY Mag)

It is still sad, but apparently not entirely unexpected.
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StanleyCincinnatus
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
all you people that didn't know him should maybe stop talking shit. he was a wonderful and caring friend.. I feel terrible for his poor daughter.
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HiredGoons
07/14/09

@StanleyCincinnatus: maybe he should have thought of his daughter before shooting heroin then? And I did know him, thnx.
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DaeSu
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
The death of a 28-year-old is unspeakably tragic, but I can't help but be deeply disturbed by someone so willfully careless with his life.
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LUV_TRUK
07/14/09

@DaeSu: Overdosing on heroin is about as tragic as getting cut while juggling chainsaws.

It's not a tragedy when it's a likely outcome of an activity. This is even less tragic than last week's "tragedy" - tourists run down by bulls in Pamplona.
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DaeSu
07/14/09

@LUV_TRUK: True, both are pointlessly risky. But I don't think many junkies expect to die. Some git running among angry bulls is engaging in that activity particularly because the threat of death is so great. That, to me, is just plain stupidity.
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WackoJacko
07/14/09

@LUV_TRUK: I guess.

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Lizawithazee
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
I'll go out on a limb here and point out that no matter whether you're rich, poor, educated, talented, a dumbass poseur, a super nice guy battling demons, or whatever, doing heroin should generally be considered a bad idea. It pains me to see this happen, and I don't even know the man or his work.

It seems ODs come in waves when a new, more powerful supply hits, so if you or your friends are dabbling in this, please be extra careful. Or just stop, if you can.

Your mom asked me to write this.
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HiredGoons
07/14/09

@Lizawithazee: thank you for that last line Liza.
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astralgirl01
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
I'm sorry, but the insensitivity shown here is stunning. Dash was a human being, however flawed, sloppy, messed up, whatever.

Who cares if he was born well-off? He made something of himself without his family's money-- intriguing, challenging, flaky, and raw art. Most importantly, he truly loved and had the back of all of his friends, however close you were to him or disapproving of his lifestyle. For that alone, he will have my respect.

I'm truly sad for his family, and especially for his daughter, who will grow up without a father. That is the true reality of this situation. RIP Dash, you were a true NYC original.
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Edited by astralgirl01 at 07/14/09 12:18 PM astralgirl01 was starred astralgirl01 was unstarred

ithabeleng metesunyane
07/14/09

@astralgirl01:

I had no idea he had a daughter. That makes this whole thing even more tragic.

I volunteer with recovering drug addicts at a half way house in Harlem. Heroin addiction is incredibly difficult to recover from. Try it a few times and you are hooked. Reminds me of the movie Requiem for a Dream.
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RonMwangaguhunga
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
He was a unique artists who shunned his douchy origins. That, in my book, made him okay. May he rest in peace.
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RollsRoyceRevenge
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
I admit that as an arts professional I always thought this guy was everything wrong with what passes for the avant-garde. Less him personally than the way that he was incorporated into the Death Star of the market. Basquiat Redux, anyone?
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flossy
07/14/09

@RollsRoyceRevenge: As another arts professional, I couldn't agree more (altough I think comparing Snow to Basquiat does the latter a great disservice). The amount of attention his worked received relative to its artistic merit was so out of whack that it actually infuriated me. That being said, I'm sorry that he's dead, especially since he left friends and family in his wake.

It strikes me that it would have been both less tragic and more iconoclastic for his artistic career to have ended by his becoming, I don't know, an accountant. I suppose in death, as in life, Dash Snow was a downtown cliche. RIP.
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Edited by flossy at 07/14/09 12:52 PM flossy was starred flossy was unstarred

RollsRoyceRevenge
07/14/09

@flossy: I don't believe Snow was in Basquiat's league, and of course their personal back histories were quite different. However I would say that it was near impossible to see the work for the hype in both cases. It's pretty much a flip of the coin the way that Basquiat's work was resurrected after his death. Will the same thing happen to Snow? I think not, and only in part because the work was less technically sophisticated.
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gawkimo
07/14/09

@RollsRoyceRevenge: I'm not sure about the comparison to Basquiat or not, and certainly I'd rather see 100 more Dash Snows than one more investment banker in the LES, but there something about all of this drug-addled hyper-masculine Dadaist "trash-sthetic" that seems a little dated to me. It feels like the younger brother of the Beats expressing hand-me-down sentiments and milking the audience with what is basically shock treatment (OMG! He took drugged-out sexually ambiguous Polaroids that feature his dick! OMG! Take that bourgeoisie!)

Anyway, he was successful and and edgy part of an increasingly non-edgy landscape and for that we should be glad he was here for a while and sad that a contributor to the art world couldn't kick the dragon.
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Edited by gawkimo at 07/14/09 2:20 PM gawkimo was starred gawkimo was unstarred

flossy
07/14/09

@RollsRoyceRevenge: For all the Basquiat hype, I always thought he was an incredibly valuable voice in the dialogue. Although I suppose he was lucky to tap into the resurgence of expressionism while it was on the upswing, his paintings had a kinetic energy and an unschooled naivety that seemed, to me at least, to contain a very visceral and eloquent distillation of "outsiderness." I think I will always admire his work, although the prices it has been fetching of late are a little over the top.

Dash Snow, on the other hand? I find it hard to believe that some 40 years after Manzoni's "Merda d'artista" and Acconci's "Seed Bed" that anyone would find his semen-y ouvre particularly novel. Moreover, the "Hamster Cage" performances, in which Snow & Co. holed up in a hotel room or gallery, tore up hundreds of phone books and/or generally made a huge mess and then ingested a corcucopia of drugs until they "felt like hamsters"... these kind of self-indulgent, destructive and nihilistic actions have always struck me as the very antithesis of good art. Like the circumstances of his death, that sort of conspicuously trangressive, épater le bourgeois stuff became cliched long ago and in the case of Snow, fairly reeked of the kind hackneyed nihilist poseurship that would have been totally unremarkable absent his illustrious bloodline. If anyone is collecting his work in ten years I will be shocked.
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therealgoogle
07/14/09

@RollsRoyceRevenge All true from an analytical point of view, however I think that people and the market following the people saw a resurgence of New York, of life in general, in his persona and that is more than technique or style
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RollsRoyceRevenge
07/14/09

@flossy: I agree that Basquiat is a significant artist. I was trying to point out that we almost lost that significance through people wearying of what they perceived as hype. I think it would be at least fair, whatever you think of Snow's work, to say that it went beyond the rather tedious ejaculatory devices.
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Jasper Reardon
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
I know to people who didn't know him Dash seems like the embodiment of all the things that are easy to make fun of about Downtown, but in truth he was a really sweet guy who was a good friend to a lot of people. And regardless of what you think of the stereotype he seems to embody to you, he's dead, and he had friends and a daughter. So try not to be such a reflexive Internet shithead for a moment.
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Mama Penguino
07/14/09

@Jasper Reardon: That's the hard part of being an ejaculate artist. You can be the nicest person on the planet, but people only see you coming.
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Jasper Reardon
07/14/09

@Mama Penguino: On the Internet, no one knows you're penguin—with a lame sense of humor.
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Gabriel Snyder
07/14/09

@Jasper Reardon: Agreed. Heavy comment moderation is in effect.
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Mama Penguino
07/14/09

@Jasper Reardon: Criticism deserved, penguin shamed. My apologies.
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SlantedAndDisenchanted
07/14/09

In reply to Dash Snow, Downtown Artist, Said to Be Dead of Overdose
So if Dash came from a shitload of money but decided instead to attend an Ivy league school, get a job on Wall Street, buy up some real estate in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Europe and basically be another rich dude that cycled through a long life being wealthy we wouldn't think of him as being a total waste?

Or is everyone here just trying to play at being uptight and British and obsessed with social class and the only PURE way to live is to be middle class, go to a state school and work forever in the corporate world until retirement?

I just don't get why so many people are offended that this guy lived the life he did, even if it was short. Not everyone is born to think and live the way you choose to do.
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LUV_TRUK
07/14/09

@SlantedAndDisenchanted:

False dichotomy FTW!
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SlantedAndDisenchanted
07/14/09

@LUV_TRUK:

I'm presenting extreme cases, of course, but I find it pretty silly how puritanical everyone here is being. He did drugs, that's bad! He came from money, that's bad! He slummed around, that's bad! He made art that I guess I maybe hated! He was a downtown hipster and that angers me!

I mean really, we're sitting here at computers commenting on a website. This is not really anything to be proud of.
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momo
07/14/09

@SlantedAndDisenchanted: For the record, I approved the thread, not this "Truk" person's commentary. Still trying to figure out the new system.
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