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Destricted

Destricted

Destricted

Destricted

Vice: I’m really interested in hearing about the place where you’re from, the Isles of Scilly. It sounds really special—

Neville Wakefield:

laughs

Why does that make you laugh?

Really? It’s Cornish, right?

laughs

What does it look like there?

Is it like a Wicker Man kind of a look?

How did culture and art reach you when you were a kid?

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You couldn’t just stroll in there and buy porn.

That’s the kind of situation where you make do, like maybe a figure-drawing book becomes a masturbation aid.

From Impaled by Larry Clark.

Was there an age when culture from the outside world kind of hit you all at once?

It was philosophy that attracted you first?

Your tone sounds a little cynical about that now. Am I misreading that?

As a key to culture, it kind of loses its charm, I think.

Who was important to you then?

I’m still curious, though, about your childhood. If I’m not misunderstanding you, you grew up in a bit of a vacuum in terms of contemporary culture.

That’s amazing.

I was building up this thing where you were born into a family of shepherds or something.

laughs

I once asked a British friend what Cornish people are meant to be like, and that’s what he said: sheep shaggers.

OK. So even as the YBA thing was exploding when you were in school, you weren’t into it.

Right. Your thesis was published as a book called Postmodernism: The Twilight of the Real.

Is it really?

From We Fuck Alone by Gasper Noé.

But not every philosophy student gets their thesis published as a book by Penguin.

Uh-oh.

What brought you here?

It was rough?

Was there anything in between your transition from philosophy to art?

Vogue

Because you were this Dickensian orphan running around?

laughs

Did writing feel like the right thing for you, or was it just something to do?

Not an audience that’s heavily versed in poststructuralism.

What was the moment like in New York in terms of the art world then?

Right. That first show, where he kind of climbed around the space.

Prince

It can fill you with dread.

Like what?

Right. I don’t go to openings.

Can’t take them.

From House Call by Richard Prince.

So you became friends with artists…

Did seeing the making of art from a more intimate point of view change your understanding of it?

It’s exciting.

It’s easy from the outside, perhaps, to have those typical cynical reactions to certain kinds of art, where someone sees a piece or photos of a show and says: “Bullshit.” But when you’re more privy to the thought behind it, and the fact that it’s like a form or literature or something—

The theoretical way.

Right.

Yes?

laughs

Are you referring to the patterns of booms and boomlets in the art world?

From Green Pink Caviar by Marilyn Minter.

Let’s talk about curating. I’ve read that you started doing it because Mary Boone called you and asked you to do something.

And this was based on your writing?

Curating had never occurred to you before that?

I don’t think that everyone really knows what curating is. When you type the word curating into Microsoft Word, it doesn’t even recognize it.

And you haven’t arrived at another definition yet?

Which is odd.

They’ll also try to engineer a group or a generational thing and then force a lot of artists into that framework. Like the “Younger Than Jesus” show that was at the New Museum.

What do you remember about your first show as a curator?

What was in that show?

A Divided Self

What year was it? Do you remember that?

laughs

That’s funny, because many curators can rifle off their CV at a moment’s notice.

Maybe, with the market the way it is.

From Four Letter Heaven by Cecily Brown.

So you did one show, and then you did another show, and so on. Did you start to feel it becoming a career?

Careerist in the sharklike sense.

Can you stomach that stuff?

Even if you tell yourself that it’s for a good cause?

From my vantage point, which isn’t anywhere near as privileged as a lot of people’s, it seems that the art world’s been about commerce and glad-handing forever.

Is that because of people catering more and more to high-powered collectors?

Biesenbach

How was your experience working at PS 1?

Which maybe an institution like that needs.

What about your time curating the Frieze Art Fair?

So the art started to make commentary on the commercial aspects?

Did you stop doing Frieze because you felt like you had done all you could there?

What does that mean?

Polluted how?

From Hoist by Matthew Barney.

Are you doing studio visits now, going and looking at new artists?

Do you rely on it to look at new art?

I’ve heard that. I’ve got this weird rule. I don’t know why I made it, but I decided that I am not going to go to the new New Museum. I’m just not going to go inside. It’s kind of a fun challenge.

And I’m not on some “Oh, it’s destroying the Bowery” kind of thing. It’s just kind of this arbitrary idea that maybe I can get by caring about art in New York and still not ever go in there.

laughs

I’ll need a new one to spring up. I’ve already polluted all of the others.

How do you see all of the changes that are being cemented in the art world changing the art that young artists are making?

Yeah.

Failure is part of the process. You’ve got to try and fail.

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laughs

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A successful failure.

Do you think people are more afraid of failing because failures are so public now? I mean, everything is so public.

Jackass

What are some works of art that you remember having a real emotional impact on you?

Broken Kilometer

Lightning Field.

I haven’t.

Spiral Jetty

So the metal was poured as a part of the performance?

From Scratch This by Sante D’Orazio.

The pieces that sprung to mind for you are things that are not only kind of grand but also things you have to go to. It’s not like you just took a taxi to Chelsea.

It’s weird because—

It’s so easy to feel like you’re back in your first year of college. But it’s fun to try and break through that because people are so afraid of being thought of as, like…

laughs

Cure-t-shirt-wearing, clove-cigarette-smoking students.

But it’s fun to go there. Is it an emotional impact that you look for in art or is it more cerebral?

And then you can decide whether you want to try and dissect that feeling in criticism.

I noticed that you have copies of Frieze and Artforum next to your bed.

laughs

But you do keep up with that stuff?

Where did you see Destricted being distributed when you were starting it?

Modern Warfare

Modern Warfare

laughs

It would be awesome. Was there also a motivation for Destricted that was about exploring pornography on its own terms?

If artists can make something that can serve the function of getting people off as well as whatever function art serves, that’s a good thing.

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Irreversible

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laughs

Internet porn has spoiled people. Isn’t there some animal—bulls, I think—where, when they’re trying to get them to mate, they jolt it with a cattle prod and it just cums? Do you know what I’m talking about?

laughs

That’s what internet porn is kind of like. It’s like this 60-second jolt: bing, bang, done.

Destricted

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