With the recent passing of downtown street heart Dash Snow there has been a major outpouring of support for the infamous graffiti artist and well known photographer. He was an artist that pushed the boundaries and confronted society by pursuing a life of a downtown street kid. Friends and family have come together to create an open memorial exhibition for the fans of Dash Snow. The show included never before seen Polaroids from Dash’s studio and other work Dash has compiled over his life time. The show was put together by Jade Berreau, Dan Colen, Jeffrey Deitch, Christophe de Menil, Kathy Grayson, Hanna Liden and Agathe Snow. The show will be running from July 23rd-August 15th. For images of the show check out the rest of the post.

Deitch Projects
76 Grand St.
New York, Ny 10013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloodwars Volume 2 / Issue Two is now out and ready to view! Featuring an interview with Bonus VTS / BKF, this issue is dedicated to all those who have passed recently. Download it and take a look.

Bloodwars is released quarterly. The next issue will be due out in about three months- November. Submissions are welcomed.

Download the new issue here: www.bloodwarsmagazine.com

A open memorial exhibition for Dash Snow will be held in his community in New York City.  It could open as early as July 21 at Deitch Projects.  Dash’s community of friends are invited to “participate in an exhibition that would include photographs or video of Dash, works of art made for Dash or in memory of him, and a small group of works by Dash in various media.”

More information from Peres Projects after the jump.

According to Peres Projects:

We thought it would be important and helpful to have an open memorial exhibition for Dash’s community in New York City. We are asking Dash’s community of friends to participate in an exhibition that would include photographs or video of Dash; works of art made for Dash or in memory of him; a small group of works by Dash in various media (just for exhibition); and an open wall where friends or admirers from the general public could write, paint, or paste something up on the wall. The outside of the gallery will feature a large recreation by his friends of his tag.

We anticipate opening to the public as early as Tuesday, July 21 at the 76 Grand Street gallery of Deitch Projects. The show would remain on view through mid-August. If you would like to participate in this exhibition by lending or creating artworks, please contact Kathy Grayson at Deitch Projects: 212 343 7300, kathy@deitch.com. We ask artists/friends who want to participate to bring artworks by the gallery beginning this Saturday, July 18th through Monday July 20th to begin installation that Tuesday. Artists are welcome to bring additional works anytime, however, that can be installed during the run of the show as well. All are welcome. Please pass this on to people you think would like to know about it

DASH SNOW

In the 1970s and ’80s, chances were good that anyone traveling the New York subways rode at least once in a car emblazoned with “Iz the Wiz.” Cryptic but euphonious, often abbreviated to the ultraminimal Iz, the signature could be seen all over the subway system: fat capital letters spray-painted on a door, below a window, across an entire car or even along the full length of a train. 

_{Mr. Martin in 1982. His signature was inspired by a poster for the musical “The Wiz.”}

Iz the Wiz was a legend among graffiti artists, by almost all accounts “the longest-reigning all-city king in N.Y.C. history,” as the graffiti Web site at149st.com puts it. In other words, Iz put his name, or tag, on subway cars running on every line in the system more times than any other artist.

Michael Martin — Iz the Wiz — died on June 17 in Spring Hill, Fla., where he had moved a few years ago. He was 50. The cause was a heart attack, said Ed Walker, who is working on a biography and documentary of Iz the Wiz.

“Look at any movie shot on location in New York from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, and you will very likely see an Iz tag,” Mr. Walker said. “He told me once that in 1982 he went out every night and did at least a hundred throw-ups” — letters filled in quickly with a thin layer of color. “People can’t fathom it.”

Not everyone was appreciative. His career put him on the wrong side of the law — he was issued summonses on several occasions — and of New Yorkers who regarded graffiti as vandalism, not art. But he was a hero to generations of taggers. Mr. Martin started out spraying graffiti on walls and buildings when he was 14, using the tags Scat or FCN, for French Canadian National, although he was not Canadian. He soon graduated to subway cars, specializing in the A line, the longest in the New York subway system. He painted his first cars with the tag Ike — his nickname, Mike, minus the first letter.

In 1975, in the 68th Street Station of the Lexington Avenue line, he saw a poster for the Broadway play “The Wiz” with the slogan, “The Wiz Is a Wow.” It had a certain ring. “He said, ‘If the Wiz is a Wow, why can’t Iz be the Wiz?’ ” his friend and fellow graffiti artist SAR (real name, Charles Sar) recalled in a telephone interview last week.

With the graffiti artist Vinny, Mr. Martin mounted an intensive throw-up campaign on the A line. In the late 1970s he branched out to other lines, spray-painting top-to-bottoms (graffiti displays extending from the top of a train to the bottom), burners (complicated works intended to dazzle the competition) and fully realized scenes, like his homage to John Lennon, painted after Lennon was shot to death in 1980. It was a two-car scene with a portrait of Lennon and a graveyard filled with tombstones.

“He was an artist, but also a bomber, recognized as a person who made himself seen by everybody,” said the photographer Henry Chalfant, using the graffiti term for a prolific artist. “At the same time he appreciated the aesthetic side of it. He didn’t do wild style” — complex, interlocking letters — “he had a simple, readable style with great color and interesting forms within the lettering itself.”

With the photographer Martha Cooper, Mr. Chalfant published “Subway Art” (1984), recently reissued by Chronicle Books; with the director and producer Tony Silver, he produced the documentary film “Style Wars” (1983), which included Mr. Martin in its portraits of graffiti and hip-hop artists. He also appeared in the role of a transit police detective in the cult 1983 film "Wild Style”.

Mr. Martin was born in Manhattan and lived in a succession of foster homes after his mother was imprisoned for burglary. He did not know his father. He grew up in Ozone Park, Queens, and as a teenager lived in Covenant House on the Lower East Side.

Like many others, he found a community in the graffiti movement. Early on he worked with artists like Vinny, Epic 1&2, and Evil 13. Later he painted with many of the top crews, or graffiti collectives, in New York, including the Odd Partners, the Crew and the Three Yard Boys. At one point he was president of the Master Blasters and the Queens chapter of the Prisoners of Graffiti.

When the graffiti artist Spar One, interviewing Mr. Martin for at149st.com in 1995, asked how many complete cars he had decorated (“You mean like burner top-to-bottom jammies?” he asked), he said: “Oh, I don’t know, I never counted. But I know in the years ’81 to ’82 I did no less than 25.” Mr. Martin often added snippets from classic rock lyrics to his tags, like “whole lotta love” or “welcome to the machine,” which became the informal titles for his more famous works.

The displays enjoyed surprising longevity in the days before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began cracking down on graffiti. Elaborately painted cars could run for months or even years. Artists would often gather at certain stations to watch their work and keep an eye on the competition, much like their counterparts did in 15th-century Florence.

Mr. Martin withdrew from the scene in the mid-1980s. He managed a grocery store briefly, then began using drugs heavily. A marriage in the late 1980s ended in divorce. He is survived by a brother, Peter Poston of Spring Hill, and a sister, Evelyn Poston of East Stroudsburg, Pa.

In the 1990s Mr. Martin jumped back into graffiti, painting cars, but also taking part in the legal graffiti movement, expressing himself on walls set aside for the purpose. He was one of the first artists to work on the Phun Phactory, a 200,000-square-foot industrial building in Long Island City, Queens, that artists began covering with graffiti in 1993. It is now known as the 5 Pointz Aerosol Art Center, or the Institute of Higher Burnin’.

Mr. Martin learned he had kidney failure in 1996, which he assumed was a result of working with aerosol paint, and for the rest of his life he was on dialysis. His financial situation was dire. “He never made the connections he needed to make to be appreciated in the art world,” Mr. Sar said.

Iz the Wiz sought fame, and found it, but not on gallery walls. His work appeared on the old dusty brown subway cars known as coal mines, and their replacements, called ding dongs for the bell tone that chimes when the doors close. Painting one of those, end to end, Mr. Martin once said, “was like sex in a can.”

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