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DASH SNOW, Polaroid wall, 2005

Polaroid wall, 2005
20 c-prints. 20 x 20 in. (50.8 x 50.8 cm) each. Polaroid Wall is a unique work.

PROVENANCE Deitch Projects, New York
EXHIBITED Royal Academy of Arts, USA Today, October 6 - November 4, 2006
LITERATURE Royal Academy Publications, ed., USA Today, London, 2006, p. 355 (illustrated)

The present lot is an installation of twenty c-prints Dash Snow created from enlargements of his Polaroid film photographs. This is the only work comprised of a set of multiple photographs that the artist has produced. "Like Ryan McGinley or Nan Goldin, who have also chronicled the downtown Manhattan scene, Snow takes a romantic approach and participates completely in the moments he documents, which ensures that his photographs do not collapse into voyeurism. Although the Polaroids are taken in the heart of the moment—depicting life as it happens—Snow pays as much attention to their formal composition as to their content. Overtly nihilistic images are resuscitated by their colors, as in the bright red blood drenching the bleached white face of a friend after a fight. Snow presents himself in the mythologized role of artist/outlaw, and another romantic theme evident in his work is an obsession with the precariousness of life. Polaroids are themselves a finite medium,and Snow's are often smudged and tarnished from being carried aroundin his pocket, echoing the fragility of the moments he captures," (C. Iles and P. Vergne, "Dash Snow," Whitney Biennal 2006—Day forNight, New York, 2006, p. 330).   "I've had so many adventures with Dash I just can't even remember them all... Driving down one-way streets in Milan at 100 miles an hour, blasting "I Did It My Way" in a white van. Wearing matching pink agnès b. suits to my first art show in LA. Finishing all the drugs with him untilt he sun was up. Finding new and innovative ways to cover windows with towels, bed sheets, and newspapers so the night could last forever. And bathroom after bathroom after bathroom. Why do I remember the bathrooms the most? Heroin, oh heroin, oh heroin. Taken the lives of so many great artists.Taken so many of my friends' lives. I don't know if you're not supposed to write about drugs when one of your friends dies of an overdose, but those are all my memories of Dash. Drug and alcohol induced memories. It's always been a bottle of Jack, a bag of coke, and some beers. And lots of bathrooms. That was just our relationship. That's what our lives were. Adventures on drugs. And it's what eventually led him to his death. One of my favorite things about Dash was always his unconscious moving hand. He would be sitting there smoking cigarettes, writing his tag in the air without being aware of it. I would just smile and watch the smoke twirl into the letters S A C E. That's how I'll always remember him,"  (R .McGinley, "Remembering Dash Snow," Vice Magazine, New York, July 2009).

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