Dash Snow: sex, semen and secrets

By George Pendle

As you walk across the manicured lawns, past the private polo field and up the steps of the pristine stone barn at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Connecticut, you might expect to be met by art that was similarly neat and luxurious: a shiny Jeff Koons puppy or a geometric constellation by Ellsworth Kelly. Instead, one of the first things to greet you is a poster declaring, “God spoiled a perfect asshole when he gave your mouth teeth”. Gulp.

This poster is the work of the artist Dash Snow, and it’s just one of a number of insults in a foul but fond show that is filled with sneers, provocations and lovingly arranged urban filth. Snow died of a drug overdose in 2009 at the age of 27. Up until then he had been part of a hedonistic group of downtown New York artists, including the photographer Ryan McGinley and the painter Dan Colen, who were loved and loathed in equal measure. Snow in particular was legendary for his debauched excesses. Yet the focus on his biography often made people overlook his creations. This exhibition, the most complete since his death, reveals an artist whose work was richer and more skilful than his live-fast-die-young legend would suggest.