Dash Snow and Dan Colen

During the preparation of “Nest,” a new exhibition on view at the Deitch Projects‘ 76 Grand Street gallery, artists Dash Snow and Dan Colen invited 30 volunteers to spend three days shredding 2,000 New York City telephone books in a grimy and most unusual installation. The group spent midnight to 8 a.m. each night wading in waist-deep shredded paper, creatively destroying everything in their process by drinking, peeing and painting while spending quality time together creating their dwelling. This performance was based on previous incidents where the artists rent a hotel room, shred phone books, string up the sheets, turn on the taps and take drugs such as mushrooms, cocaine and ecstasy until they feel like hamsters (read article in NY Magazine). Since the events took place, the gallery has remained in the condition the artists left it and will be on view for the public until August 18. Although Snow and Colen create very different works independently, Snow’s work is grounded in photography and Colen’s in painting. Both artists bear a gritty, raw and rebellious sensibility in their work. Snow has exhibited recently at Sutton Lane in London and Rivington Arms in NYC. Colen, a previous DailyServing feature, recently exhibited “No Me” at Peres Projects in Berlin and “Secrets and Cymbals, Smoke and Scissors (My Friend Dash’s Wall in the Future)” at Deitch Projects and Peres Projects in Los Angeles.














