Dries Verhoeven

It feels a bit formal hitting record when we’ve already been talking for the last ten minutes. But to start formally, could you describe yourself in less than 20 words?
I’m a queer visual artist…performance artist, who’ is interested in the clandestine parts of us that we normally like to hide.
What do you want to hide?
In general, I think we all adapt to what society is asking us to do. So, yeah, I’ve made works about shoplifting, about drug use, and about all the sexual practices that we don’t share with our mom. What I’m doing in Venice is more about the hidden fascist in us all.
Okay, so you’re the official Dutch entry to this year’s Biennale. What’s it about?
Yeah, yeah. So the Rietveld Pavilion was built post-war, clearly showing the ideology of the Netherlands as they wanted to see themselves in those years. It’s a very utopian building, and I felt it would be a bit ridiculous to give the Netherlands the chance to show themselves with that ideology. So we decided to enclose it in metal shutters for a locked in experience, with a performance.
Who’s performing?
We work with a group of 13 performers that take turns. They use their vocal cords so it sounds like they speak with sandpaper. What they do with their voice makes me fucking nervous, and I think that’s a great feeling.
Do you like to make people uncomfortable?
Well, my work always starts from my own discomfort, and I look for ways to share that with an audience. If I know too well how to position myself towards a certain topic, I would never make art about it.
I feel like there’s a uniquely Dutch trait of being willing to tap into that uneasy feeling. You know, in England everything’s all about modifying your behavior to make someone feel comfortable, even if that’s not what you’re really thinking.
Yeah, that’s true. I’m not particularly fond of being Dutch, but you might be right, that we are known for being very blunt. Yeah, I still see art as a space where we can, like, connect with the discomfort and all those parts in ourselves for which we are not proud of. There is a certain sardonic pleasure in creating spaces where we can make the audience confront this.
Things have become so sanitized in the art world, right? It goes hand in hand with all the censorship that’s been going on recently.
Yes, and that’s something I would like to discuss, because the Giardini is also a bit of a safe space where everything is being addressed. On a cognitive level, you’re in contact with all the trouble in the world. But on an experiential level, no, you just drink another Aperol Spritz and another cappuccino, and it’s pretty safe. There’s this demand for safe spaces in which we are always warned of every trigger.

How much of your work comes from your own experience?
It always starts with, like, my own sense of unease about how to position myself towards what can be a very simple question.
So when you made ‘Wanna Play?’ about Grindr, back when hookup apps were still fairly new, what was the uneasy question you had at that time?
Yeah, basically just this question of how love and intimacy would be when we put ourselves into a showcase and let our sexual selves be capitalized on by a company in Silicon Valley that makes lots of money out of our desires.
It was quite controversial, right? You were accused of “luring men into traps” for your own gain as an artist!
There’s a lot of suspicion that what you’re doing as an artist is either to gain fame or you’re gonna get rich. But, actually, I wanted to say, ‘I’d like to question the state of the world, and you’re all invited.’ So yeah, I was inviting people to come to my little shopping window where I was living for two weeks and asking them to fulfil all my non-sexual desires. Big mistake is that I did that in Berlin, but I was fucking naive back then and had no clue about the history of privacy in Germany.
Eek.
Coming in with my fucking Dutch bluntness, from Amsterdam, where everybody leaves their curtains open. I thought, ‘Hey, let’s show this world.’ So I made the talks I had with guys public, but anonymized all the chats and blurred the pictures, but still, people were outraged, because there was something of their online behavior visible in public space, and it was a real taboo.
I mean the irony that at that time, Grindr was selling data on people’s HIV status and personal stats to advertising companies. But people were more concerned on an individual level…
I was also thinking, who’s the real monster here? I brought the performance to the Netherlands, and no one gave a damn. I think the one in Berlin was more effective because there was more at stake, because people were protective of their online identities with a militancy that I found very telling.

Okay so you used Grindr for “artistic purposes”. Are you still an active app user?
No no no, just when I look for sex – and that’s not every day, that was pre-boyfriend.
That makes a difference. Not wasting hours endlessly searching for something you already have at home.
Yeah, and I was also some kind of an addict, I guess, because it was a candy store! Now, the financial model of that app is horrendous. The number of guys that you can see without paying is so limited. I find it really evil.
I mean, it’s not in their business model for people to actually be having sex, right? They just want you to spend more time on the app.
Sure. And I mean, we’ve always been cruising as queer folks, we’ve always been meeting each other in the dark alley, and now the dark alley is our phone. But the big difference is that someone is making billions out of that now.
Do you cruise regularly?
When I have time, yeah! I really like cruising, but I’m just too busy. Aside from time, there’s not much that blocks me. Both me and my boyfriend Sergio do it.
Together or separately?
We tried together, but that wasn’t a success, because we always end up with different people. We try a lot in Club Church in Amsterdam, for example, and I have the upper floor, and he has the basement. We each have our own cruising zone. So clubs are something we do together. But parks, for me, that’s been a very long time ago. And the sauna is not really my space for one reason or another, but Sergio loves it.
What do you not like about saunas?
I don’t know. I find myself making endless circles in those labyrinths. Why is it not the vibe?
The endless circle is part of it, though, right?
I know it’s part of the fun, I guess. But back when I started cruising in the Rose Garden here in Vondelpark, there was also a certain…poetry. Like the first time when I just heard the leaves (makes crunching sounds) and there was this moonlight. There was like this very childish sense of adventure, and that I still have in dark rooms. Maybe that’s something that I’m missing in saunas.
Everything’s too in your face?
Yeah, but then again, I find myself quite often at chemsex parties where there’s a lot in your face, but you also find yourself just chatting on the couch with random people. I find that really…a very queer way of spending a night.
So you go to sex parties for the conversation?
No! (laughs) But they get better, I must say, when there’s also a good conversation.
When you made ‘The NarcoSexuals’, was it rooted in your own experience?
Definitely, and that of friends. I guess it was about the visibility of queer spaces. To open up that space and to say, hey guys, we’re still here and what we do here, you might not like it. You might find it a bit dirty, and you might find it a bit uncomfortable, but you might even recognize yourself a bit in our desires. I also wanted to see if this can be seen through the lens of sexual freedom that earlier generations fought for, or if that former revolution is now laying in coma on the couch.
Did you get any backlash for it?
Not that much, because – well, you saw the work – we didn’t want to glorify it. We also didn’t want to demonize it. We first of all wanted to just make a portrait that makes the straight crowd fucking jealous and think, wow, I would love to ring that doorbell and to join in, and to make the queer crowd also realize, wow, there’s an ambulance arriving, and I know why.
Is there a final taboo that would be pushing it too far for you?
In general I’m not waiting for the next candle. I’m interested in the dark. So nothing else is off limits. I just need to find a good way to address something that’s intriguing about a topic, without glorifying it.

Okay, I have some lighter things now. If you could be anyone for seven minutes, who would you be?
Annie Sprinkle!
How come?
Showing my…was it the uterus or was it the ovaries? Showing my inside organs to an audience, being so brave, being so shameless. I think when I’m confronted with a good work of art, I always feel a bit prudish, or, what do you call it…stuffy? I never saw her work, but that notion that someone opens their legs and lets an audience watch their insides, I’d like to do that if I was brave enough.
Nice. So in a parallel universe, what would you do if you weren’t an artist?
I’d bake cakes! I’m really good at baking. My granddad was too, and it’s one of my hobbies. I have a habit of baking too much, so it’s always the neighbors who end up with it.
That’s a good one. Maybe you can become a baker if you ever get cancelled.
Yeah, I have a history of that. It’s also comforting to know that when you really fail as an artist, there’s a second thing waiting for you.
Who are your biggest sex icons?
There’s a man in Berghain who always asks for your piss in the toilets. He’s often sitting there all night. I have a soft spot for men who persist in their sexual desires.
I heard a rumor that he died! Do you go to Berghain often?
I used to live in Berlin until a few years ago. Maybe I still go four times a year. I also have a history of not seeing someone for two years and then walking into the Berghain dark room and bumping into someone I had amazing sex with and just doing it again. Sometimes I don’t even remember their name, but there’s a clear sexual connection.
Okay, okay. Do you fall in love easily?
Not so quick. I fell in love nine years ago with my current husband, and I still am, I guess. We’ve always been in an open relationship…since literally the first minute, there was already someone else involved. So there’s been many people, but I never fell in love with anyone else in the last nine years.
You clearly found the right person!
I guess so, or I protect myself from falling in love.
Falling in love is much harder. Where did you meet?
On my living room floor! So I was living in Berlin, and he passed by. It was a Grindr date, and we ended up on the floor and after 20 minutes, he left, that was it. But then I saw him again in Berghain two years later, and then I went to New York and updated my Facebook status, and he responded. We’ve been together since then. He made me realize that sexual connection is the starting point, if there’s no animalistic bond between you and the other person then I find it really difficult to fall in love.
Okay, we’re probably running out of time, so let’s get back to Venice. What should someone know before visiting the Biennale for the first time?
Do your geopolitical homework! Just read a little bit about Israel, the US and Russia, and maybe you’ll think, no, it’s not desirable that all these countries can still be involved. But it’s also super intriguing, because what you will be walking around in is also some kind of Truman Show. There’s lots of wishful thinking in that place, trying to keep the old days alive.
Totally, it’s a real political theatre. Do you have anything lined up when you get back?
So I’m making a work called ‘Orgasmagoria’, where I want to bring the spectacle of cybersex into a vintage porn cinema. I totally love working with these cyber-sex workers, as they have so much to say about how we operate – dicks in hand, behind our laptops. It’s the perfect filthy antidote to the prestige of the Biennale.