Comprised of the contents of the studio of Dash Snow (1981-2009), a new exhibition at Participant Inc. draws from this vast archive including Polaroids, 35mm photographs, collages, sculptural works, Super 8 films, and zines. Polaroids and serial works on paper highlight the methodical aspects of Snow’s daily practices and lifework, as do process sculptures, including three major assemblage works being exhibited for the first time. Snow’s earliest artistic output began during his teenage years in the mid-‘90s as a third generation graffiti writer on New York’s Lower East Side. A portrait of Snow above the entrance to the F train on Allen Street has still not been bombed over.
Dash Snow, Newspapers 1, 2006, c-print from 35mm, 33 x 49 7/8 inches. © Dash Snow, Courtesy of the Dash Snow Archive, NYC
Dash Snow was born in 1981 in New York City, where he worked throughout his life. He was sent to a juvenile facility in his teenage years, from which he ran away, moving in with friends on the Lower East Side in 2000. With artist Kunle Martins (Earsnot), Snow joined the IRAK graffiti crew, marking the city with his signature SACE tag. Encouraged by close friends such as Ryan McGinley and Dan Colen, in 2005 he entered the art world with his first solo exhibition Moments Like this Never Last at Rivington Arms, the gallery neighbor of Participant Inc at that time, long before the neighborhood was home to commercial galleries. This growing community of artists who came to define the post-9/11 art scene in New York, including Colen, McGinley, Hanna Liden, Agathe Snow, Terence Koh, Nate Lowman, among others, soon gained attention and were labeled by some ‘the Bowery School.’
