Last Days of Dash Snow

Photo by Kazumi Asamura

Snow was found on July 13th in the Lafayette House in the East Village, where he had just checked in for a three day stay. The contents of the room included "an empty can of Amstel Light, an empty can of Heineken, an empty bottle of Bacardi rum, three used syringes and 13 glassine envelopes emptied of heroin." Earlier, in the midst of a bender, he called his partner Jade Berreau, who was nearby with their daughter and friends discussing an intervention for him. He closed the conversation telling her: “Goodbye. I love you. I’ll see you in another world.” With those words Berreau and a friend busted open the hotel room door to find Snow submerged in a bathtub. 90-minutes of CPR couldn't save him, and he was declared dead at 12:24 a.m.

Prior to being cremated in New Jersey, Snow's body was in a basement refrigerator at the New York City morgue, then transferred to the Andrett Funeral Home, where friends and family gathered. "Only his next of kin could go in and recognize his body. Jade went in and she wanted to take pictures of his tattoos. His parents didn’t think that was a good idea and didn’t let it happen.”

Meanwhile, Deitch is holding a Community Memorial through August 15th. They say, "Snow's friends and family have joined together to create an open memorial exhibition for Dash's community. We have asked friends to bring photographs and video of Dash and works of art made for Dash and works made in his memory. A group of previously unseen Polaroids from Dash's studio are also included. The memorial project also has an open wall where Dash's friends and admirers can write, paint or paste artworks and texts in his memory." The facade of the gallery has also been painted over with his tag: SACER. Visitors are encouraged to bring flowers.