Bash Compactor: Dash Compacted

Damon Dash, former Jay-Z BFF and founder of RocaWear, has discovered a new calling in life: gallery owner. And so last Thursday, with songstress and co-host Erykah Badu on his arm, Dash arrived at his recently opened Dash Gallery on Duane Street in Tribeca for the opening of artist Kyle Goen’s latest show The Voice That Arms Itself to Be Heard. Would the music mogul have the goods to compete with the epic galleries of westernmost Chelsea?

Imbibing a Warholian Factory vibe, the Dash Gallery houses not only a show space, but also a recording studio (The Black Keys recorded its latest release in-house), offices for a potential new magazine and a rehearsal space.

“We were very passionate about creating an interactive space where everyone could come together,” Gallery Director Nyssa Frank, quite awesomely channeling Jem with her drawn-on eye make-up and wildly coiffed white blond hair, explained. “It’s all about collaboration.” The idea appears to be working well, as the space was packed with a crowd of artists and tastemakers an hour before the public opening of the show. Of course, having Badu as a host for the evening didn’t hurt.

As for the show, Goen’s art is, as artist Dread Scott described, “what might happen if Andy Warhol and Emory Douglas collaborated.” Yet while Warhol gave us Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, the more politically charged Goen gives us Nelson Mandela, Huey Newton and a reworking of The Presidential Seal of the United States that reads “The United States is Committing War Crimes in Your Name.”

Political Pop Art if you will, and Badu was quite taken with it: “When I see him act alone, when I see him work with pride, when I see him bravely take his position with a paint brush in one hand and his heart in the other, I am braver, I am louder, I am humbled.”