Moments Like This Never Last

Moments Like This Never Last explores the life and legacy of the late artist Dash Snow (1981-2009) who died of a heroin overdose in a Noho hotel room at the age of 27. Growing up in the beautifully fucked up Manhattan, before Giuliani and the broken window war, before Disney sanitized 42nd street of prostitutes and pornographers, before lower manhattan turned into a shopping mall, chaos came naturally. He reveled in the fraying social fabric of 80s New York and fought capricious authority at home, at the “juvi” institution he was locked up in, and on the streets. In a jeremiad of graffiti, trash assemblages, un-photoshopable polaroids, cum stained headlines, collage and feral rituals archived on super 8, Dash celebrated creation, destruction and the marginalized, striking out at the social pasteurization and criminalization of nonconformity happening all around him.

He was a bull born into the China shop, rejecting the trappings of privilege for freedom, a force of nature refusing to play nice. He took what he found, and like a hurricane rearranging the landscape. Born into one of the most important American art families whom he rejected and was rejected by, he found a new family in the artists of post 911 lower Manhattan. He Started the take-over by writing his name all-city as a young graffiti artist and subsequently becoming an accidental international art star. High stakes, drugs and the pressure to keep producing took its toll becoming a cautionary tale.