Thank god I’ve discovered a hip young artist named Dash Snow! He and his friend Dan Colen have a new exhibit at the Deitch Gallery in New York, described as one of the most unusual ever presented. I think it’s one or possibly more rooms full of torn up phone books, where the artists and their friends have rolled around and deposited some body fluids.
Dash Snow is a 25 year old renegade heir to a fortune whose family has been compared to the Medicis, and whose bother Max is dating one of the Olson twins. Dash is notorious for living on the street and getting arrested. He likes to take drugs and cause trouble. At 16, he ran a graffiti crew called Irak, and gained underground fame for his daring antics. He jumps out of windows, smokes crack, shoplifts, etc. He is a folk hero to photographer Ryan McGinley, who is like Larry Clark only more of an asshole (with all due respect of course.)
One of Dash’s exhibits is a group of framed newspaper clippings on which he has masturbated. Pee and sperm seem to feature prominently in his work. New York magazine ran a nine page story about Dash and his buddies, and the tone of the piece incomprehensively appreciative.
Why do we have to have people like this posing as artists and being rewarded for it? Why don’t these hipsters either do something useful or else kill themselves? Rich kids who sleep on the streets of Alphabet City are a scourge and an insult to vagrants and bums everywhere.
On an even more tragic note, apparently Dash has just become a father and named his kid ‘Secret.’ Just one cultural crime among many.
“incomprehensively appreciative” – perfectly stated.
“What is art?” is that question community college teachers ask their befuddled students. Me – I think “art” implies a mastery of the elements used to create a work. That’s what separates the usual dreck that anyone can do with a little practice from real art.
I think most modern art critics have their heads so far up their own fundaments that they can’t get them out to take a look around.
I was into the whole homeless preppy thing way before this Dash chump.