Downtown artist Dash Snow died of a heroin overdose last week. The formation of his legacy is well underway. Was he an authentic artist with a tortured soul, or a selfish jerk who left his daughter fatherless?

Dash Snow is already being branded an "icon." The downtown sperm-and-whatever-else artist died Monday night of a heroin overdose at the age of 27. And you can already spot the outlines of a Basquiat-esque art world canonization starting to form.

Dash Snow, who died last night at the age of 27, took Polaroids, wrote graffiti, made collages and installations, and jacked off on newspapers (and was aware of how that was perceived). A dozen of his artworks, below.

Dash Snow's grandmother confirms he died by heroin overdose last night. [NYT]

Multiple sources tell us that Dash Snow—photographer, semen artist, graffiti writer, and embodiment of the downtown NYC scene—has apparently died of a heroin overdose, two years shy of his 30th birthday.

Shepard "OBEY Obama" Fairey has pleaded guilty to vandalism charges in Boston, and he's getting off easy. Boston, on the other hand...

Speaking of important Michael Jackson news, pancake-painter-to-the-stars Dan Lacey has some! He painted this moving portrait of "Joe Jackson with a Michael Jackson memorial ticket and a pancake upon his head." Ebay is censoring it!

Thomas "Painter of Darkness" Kinkade, the world's single most objectionable mass-producer of wall-hangings for middle American Baptists, is not just a terrible offender against aesthetics—he's also a crook!

Iz The Wiz, a graffiti legend since the 1970s, died of heart failure in Florida last night. He started in NYC and went all-world. Blogue has details and a retrospective of his art.

A street artist in Russia was arrested by the secret service, interrogated, and beaten after he made this piece showing Vladimir Putin as a woman. In Russia, politicians, cops, and vandals are all equally insane criminal badasses. [via Daily Mail]

Hello, it's a big new art show by zillionaire street artist Banksy, an artist who does not suck—his first show since his crazy robot monkey show in NYC last year. Let's look, shall we?

NYC subway ad vandalartist Poster Boy is all up the fancy galleries now! Well not the "fancy" galleries, but galleries nonetheless. But do ad remixes really translate to gallery walls? Kinda.

Hello, pancake painter-to-the-stars Dan Lacey has completed another work of art suggested by you, the celebrity-obsessed Gawker readers. Today: "Mickey Rourke and the canine-star of Beverly Hills Chihuahua urinating on him."

Pancake painter-to-the-stars Dan Lacey has unveiled his third painting inspired by you, the Gawker commenters. Today: "An S&M goat getting married to a pancake while Rush Limbaugh and a bunch of other conservatives look on in rage."

In 2007, NYC had "The Splasher," an anonymous pseudo-intellectual prick who went around defacing street art. Now England has its own pricks who've decided to deface Banksy murals. Unless it's an elaborate hoax.

Pancake painter to the stars Dan Lacey has completed his second painting suggested by you, the Gawker readers: OctoMom upon the cross, as Angelina and Madonna worship her.

Two conceptual artists/nuts decided that they could stop people from dying by building bizarre apartments for them. But Bernie Madoff lost all their money! He's killed the dream of immortality through uneven flooring:

Poster Boy and friends have a gallery show in Brooklyn tomorrow. Don't tell the cops.

Ladies and gentlemen, your selection for pancake artist-to-the-stars Dan Lacey's next painting is "Rush Limbaugh with a chained Princess Leia (Sarah Palin) and Michael Steele as C3P0." He's already started it.