Dash Snow Retrospective Is Next Up at the Brant Foundation

Cait Munro September 17, 2015 ShareShare This Article

The second of the Brant Foundation’s twice-yearly exhibitions will be a retrospective of work by Dash Snow, the hard-partying downtown icon of the early aughts who died in 2009 at the age of 27, reports the New York Observer. Snow is known for his photographs, collages, and graffiti art, which often served as a record for the exploits of his rebellious crew of fellow artist friends, which included Dan Colen, Ryan McGinley, Terence Koh, Nate Lowman, Hanna Liden, and ex-wife Agathe Snow.

While the Foundation has yet to confirm the exhibition, according to the Observer, several sources have noted that it is already underway and will be the most comprehensive survey of Snow’s brief but influential career to date.

Despite being veritable art world royalty—his grandmother is Christophe de Menil and his aunt is actress Uma Thurman—Snow emerged as a kind of mythological, anti-authoritarian emblem of the wild downtown art scene. In 2007 at the age of 25, he and his friends were the subject of a lengthy profile in New York magazine, in which McGinley calls Snow “a man of mystery.”

Dash Snow, Untitled (in 20 parts) (2006).
Photo: artnet.

While the market for works by most of his contemporaries has soared—often into the high six figures—Snow’s has remained stagnant since his death. Untitled (in 20 parts), a 20-piece mixed-media on newsprint work made from tabloid images of Saddam Hussein which Snow ejaculated on sold for $209,000 in 2014, but most of his prices hover in the region of $20,000–$50,000, according to the artnet Price Database. But a show at Brant’s museum may change that as shows there have been known to do great things for an artist’s market as well as for the critical reception of the work.

It’s especially fitting for Snow’s first retrospective to be at the Brant Foundation because the publishing magnate and mega-collector has held solo shows of work by both Lowman and Colen, whose 2014 exhibition was a tribute to Snow.