Dash Snow. The name still carries a certain… cachet. This new show in Paris, curated by Jeppe Ugelvig, promises a look at Snow's work through the lens of decadence. But beyond the romantic allure of a downtown demimonde, what’s the actual story here? Let’s dissect the economics of cool, using Snow as our case study.
Ugelvig frames Snow as part of a continuum, linking him to photographers like Brassaï and Atget. He notes, "It was a new age of America in decline… Dash’s take was not a countercultural response to the middle class; it was a take on the decay of American society, the decline of great cities, and how one navigates that space.” But decline, as any vulture capitalist knows, is an opportunity.
Snow's "decline" aesthetic—the sex, drugs, and downtown grit—became his brand. It was raw, unfiltered, and, crucially, marketable. The New York Magazine cover featuring Snow alongside Ryan McGinley and Dan Colen as "Warhol's Children" (January 5, 2007) is a perfect example. Ugelvig points out that this street cred was something "the art world wasn’t ready for." Or, perhaps, it wasn't sure how to quantify.
Think of it as an inverse bell curve. The more "authentic" (read: anti-establishment) Snow appeared, the more valuable his work became to a segment of the art market craving that very authenticity. It’s a paradox, of course. But the art market thrives on paradox.
The question, though, is whether this translates to lasting value. Did Snow's art appreciate at a rate commensurate with the hype, or was it a fleeting trend fueled by the ephemeral energy of a specific moment in New York history? Details on the actual sales figures for Snow's work are surprisingly scarce (I've looked at hundreds of these artist profiles, and the lack of concrete financial data is always telling).
Ugelvig also highlights Snow's impact on contemporary art, noting that "in the age of social media, artists today almost have to have a larger dominion than just making art objects.” Snow, in effect, pioneered a model where lifestyle became integral to the art. His very existence, his persona, was part of the product.
This is where the Polaroid comes in. As Ugelvig says, "Dash had a flow of images produced running around on nights out or around the house that would often end up in a magazine." The Polaroid wasn’t just a medium; it was a real-time documentation of a carefully cultivated image. Dash Snow’s Prophetic Polaroids of American Decadence.
But let's be clear: this "unfiltered youth culture" was anything but accidental. It was a performance, expertly crafted and disseminated. Snow understood the power of image control long before Instagram influencers.
And this is the part of the report that I find genuinely puzzling: how much of Snow's success was attributable to genuine artistic talent, and how much was simply the result of savvy self-promotion and the mystique of his family background (hailing from the de Menil family)? It’s impossible to disentangle the two.
The problem is that the art world often conflates "notoriety" with "value." And while notoriety can certainly drive short-term sales, it doesn't guarantee long-term investment potential. Did Snow's work possess intrinsic artistic merit that transcended his persona, or was it simply a reflection of the cultural moment that birthed him?
Snow died young – just 27. And the art world, as it often does, romanticized his tragic story. But let's strip away the sentimentality for a moment. Was Dash Snow a visionary artist, or a symptom of a market that rewards style over substance? The answer, as always, is probably somewhere in the gray area. But without concrete sales data and a rigorous analysis of his work beyond the hype, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Snow's artistic legacy is inextricably linked to the carefully constructed mythology that surrounded him.
