The $90,000 piece of “art” I would NOT buy
Comments(9) I just read a very interesting article in New York magazine. It came out a week or two ago, so forgive me if this discussion is already passe… but I have to wait until I go to the gym to get my magazine reading done, so there is a bit of a backlog. And anyway, since people like Dash Snow keep coming ’round, it seems like a topic that never gets passe.
Under a cover headline of “Warhol’s Children” the article was about that very favorite subject of urban lore, the downtown party child. The current incarnation of this archetype discussed in the article is Mr. Snow, the brilliantly named graffiti writer cum (lots of cum) art-world phenom. Dash apparently has been shoveling snow, and any other drugs he can get his hands on, nightly since he was a wee lad. Lovely quote: “I did my first line of coke when I was 13 years old and I’ve been partying every night and taking pictures ever since. Everything’s a blur and every night is New Year’s as far as I’m concerned. [When I’m at a party, I look for] a dark corner, a wallet, a bag of blow and some love to go.” (that’s from Papermag)
He also has a couple of other attributes that make him the perfect subject for the projected fantasies of middle-aged art patrons and respectable-citizenry everywhere: besides being a drug addict and a thief (his graf crew was called IRAK, meaning “I steal” which they did, daily), he is blondly and lithely beautiful, and comes from – though is supposedly estranged from – one of the most wealthy art-collecting families in America. Privileged, gorgeous self-destruction – who wouldn’t want a vicarious piece of that?
Indeed, it is a formula that has worked well before. Larry Clark and his Kids, Warhol’s Factory, its contemporaneous incarnation in Yves Saint Laurent’s Paris, earlier in the New York art world Jackson Pollack and Willem DeKooning. And even earlier still the Paris bohemians of 19th century (sorry – I seem to have this New York/ Paris axis going on. I am sure there are self-destructive beauties on other places/ times as well…) What is it about self-annihilation, about total escapism and lack of engagement, that seems so damn sexy? But at least Pollack, DeKooning, and Warhol had artistic genius – it is far from clear that Dash does. He is more Edie Sedgewick that Andy Warhol: his artistic product is much less interesting than himself as product, the glitter and doom (to borrow the title from the show, with related themes, currently on at the Met) that he symbolizes to the people who buy a piece of him through his work.
So, I said this article was interesting, and what I found interesting about it was not Snow himself, by a long shot, but rather the reaction that other people – people who by and large are following the rules of society – have to somebody like Snow, who puts his middle finger up to all the rules of society, and rather than being cut down for it, actually seems to be thriving for it (well, if you consider a full-time drug addiction and desperate paranoia “thriving.”) At least he is becoming famous and coveted, which I guess is the popular definition of thriving these days. He taps into that part of all of us that wishes we could fuck the responsibility, the rules and consequences that get us down, and not only get away with it, but miraculously become superstars for it… Its like shooting the moon in Jin Rummy: most of us don’t have the balls to try, but some part of us wishes we did.
Um, excuse me, I have to go – I have an appointment with my therapist.
I have been considering an experiment. Whilst it is true that most of us can’t live the life of Dash for an extended period of time, I have been wondering if it would be freeing or interesting to do so for a limited period. To have a week or a month or a term when one just said, I’m going to live like I’m going to die at the end of this period. And so I’m going to to whatever I want. Now that might mean wanking over art and free-basing heroine. Or it might mean just speaking your mind at all times and not taking shit from anyone. It might mean pursuing your passions without censure or hesitation. It might mean freedom or it might mean selfishness.
Who’all is with me?
If I or Dash or anybody at all cool and disturbed actually just let loose we would die. Wouldn’t you? The first time you wanted to fly or the first time you wanted to fucking rip a cabby’s head off – that would be the end. God forbid you walked by some wall street douche bag or muscle head there would be gore on the street and you’d be in jail.
It’s all about skating that edge. Pushing boundaries. Not living without them. DASH SNOW is unique and of interest mainly because, yeah he pushes them pretty much all out relative to his elite family. And he’s rare because he has that elite background he can pull his adolescent hijinks and be famous and successful. The rest of them/us that say fuck the police, jerkoff on the NY Post then wipe our ass with it, do drugs, wander around the scene, steal shit, and tag walls – well we’re just scumbags.
Its the coming from de Menil or whatever and debasing your own life so much that is the statement which is profound. And also reassuring to scumbags, thrill seakers, arrested-development-adolescents, and the tight-asses who wish they were.
For Ryan McGinley, who doesn’t have trust funds and shit he says in the Warhol’s Children piece he’s on the perimeter, witnessing Dash’s genuine craziness and photographing it. At the same time Dash Snow is really just skirting the edge, looking at the life he wish he had, but he’s still elite blood, well funded, expected to produce, etc, no matter what. Its part real, part pretend, escapist as much as it is existential. Honest and profound nonetheless.
so basically you have to be pissing something away – money & connections, or talent, or fame & potential – for it to be vicariously interesting… otherwise you are right, it would just be another “scumbag” who nobody cares about… hmmm
“Honest and profound”? I’m sorry, but it strikes me that Dash Snow is inherently DIS-honest and simple. His drug use, flippant disregard for society, and general “fuck you” attitude do not represent a some existentialist statement of rebellion against a bloodline of American royalty, rather misguided, bratty, adolescent posturing.
Why didn’t anyone ever tell us in school that you only need a trust fund to get away with any number of disgusting felonies? Sorry kids, it’s because the legal system doesn’t work that way. (Call Dominick Dunne and ask his opinion…)
I cannot believe that people are buying into this “Dash Snow is the second cumming of modern American art”! Oh – whoops, my mistake, shooting one’s wad is always so profound and honest.
Likewise, I cannot believe New York Magazine wrote 9 pages on this shit, and I cannot believe I spent 15 minutes of my life reading it.
[...] Dash Snow: “At 25, he is a growing downtown legend, a graffiti writer turned artist with a beautiful face and a De Menil pedigree, elusive even to the two friends who created his myth.” (New York Magazine). Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…, Dash Snow, Dash Snow, Dash Snow, Dash Snow, Dash Snow, Dash Snow, Dash Snow, Dats Snow, That’s Snow, That’s Show. Dash Snow: The end of living…the beginning of survival at Contemporary Fine Arts (April 28 – June 23, 2007). Gallery Weekend Berlin 2007 (April 27 – 30, 2007). By VernissageTV correspondent Lizza May David. > Click image to watch Flash video in new movie window. > Right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) this link to download Quicktime video file. > Click this link to watch Quicktime video in new movie window. [...]
If dash were not a De Menil.
his cum would be as interesting as mine.
His “friends” are just awaiting payday.
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