John LeKay: Can you please tell me about your name and your yoga practice and how you apply this discipline in your poetry and paintings and other aspects of your life?
Billy Childish: In 1977 (aged 17) I was a punk rocker. I couldn't sing or play an instrument but wanted to be involved so I started a fanzine. Every one had odd names and I wanted one too. I chose Gus Claudius, cos my mother was going to name me Gus when I was born and "I claudius" was on TV in 76 and I really liked it. I carried this name for a week or two till a friend of mine said "your not Gus Claudius, your Billy childish' so I was.
I gave up drinking 1993. I was an alcoholic for about 15 years. I was already interested in yoga and had studied Ti Chi and Taoist stuff when I was 14 - 16. I always questioned any one I came across who might know about Buddhist thought or yoga. I also picked up a book on Vippassana meditation that I liked the no bullshit aspect off. I then met up with a friend who'd been in Australia studying Iyenga yoga. I then found a local teacher at the adult education class who practiced this style. I also signed myself up for a ten day Vippassana course with Goenka. the Vippassana helped my yoga a lot, not the other way round. basically I found a lot that made sense to me about not getting to hung up on control and letting the work - painting etc, do its own thing. I get out of the way of the painting and let it happen. a painting/poem, knows what it wants to be like, if you just let it.
Yoga and meditation confirmed a lot of instinctual ideas I had: basically not to make a big deal out of stuff; to use art to become friends with myself not rule the world. I find a lot of yoga practice to be very keen on slapping people into shape, for this reason I didn't become a teacher of yoga. ( I practiced very hard for the last 5 years and now do just home practice) I cant read and rite to good and don't like the very authoritarian attitude of the British wheel - which prefers mental knowledge way above physically knowing posture. a balance between the two would be fine but most are blind, liberal extremists in love with good feelings about themselves. actually many are blind to discussion on their need to rule, but obsessed with lesson plans and teacher training.
JL: I was thinking about one of Colin Wilson's earlier books, "The Outsider", wherein he says that the health of a society can be measured by how it treats its "outsiders". Outsiders are people who do not "fit in", for various reasons, usually revolving around an unrelenting internal impulse to speak the truth as they see it, which has obvious consequences. He mentions Dostoyevsky, Van Gogh and others. He says Outsiders may be artists, religious people, writers, criminals, adventurers, etc. They may also be society's shamans, seers, visionaries, and also act as litmus testers. What do you think?
BC: Sounds rite to me.
JL: He also says that primitive cultures which incorporate and tolerate outsiders get to enjoy the knowledge and contributions of outsiders. Cultures which alienate outsiders by rejecting and repressing them, risk losing the contributions of their visionary and innovators, an unhealthy situation. How about this?
BC: Yes, I see this could be true
JL: This one brings to mind Edward Munch and Van Gogh. What is it about this kind of work that you find inspirational and why is it still so relevant 100 years later when other contemporary painters are more concerned with gimmicky materials like excrement, earwax, urine, dandruff, fingernail clippings, blood, semen or nasal drippings. etc etc etc.BC: Some modern chaps don't realise that the world around us isn't art so they use and think that objects in our world are art. They mistakenly think they are thinking and are a step ahead of the game by using 'modern materiel - detritus...but we already have excrement, semen, dandruff, earwax, fingernail clippings and boogies in our lives. Van Gogh transmuted his bed into art, he didn't exhibit his bed, as Victorians, as expert materialists would of not been fooled into believing and ordinary object could be transformed by the will of an artist into art. (and in fact only galleries can do this trick today, but only by labeling themselves as such over the door) it important to realise that we as a society are spiritually less evolved than the Victorians in that they were at least materialist, where as we are, of the main, consumers only. a Victorian wouldn't buy a pair of shoes you couldn't re sole. we chuck everything. if you like we have gotten rid of some of positive elements of that period and kept the a lot of the dodgy stuff - child labor etc, all be it hidden in other countries.
This is a 15 minute painting of the closed down church down the road in my rough tough old town. Its on wood. Yes, it brings to mind both these artists, but if we bother to look it is nothing like their work. (even in the show I did of Vincent's paintings - www.deathsheadmoth.com - only the one of crows in the
field is painted in his closed and 'fanictiy style' but yes, those chaps live on with me. they are relevant and people who see the world rather than merely look, recognise art and life and the invisible world of spirit that is really there and screaming to say hello. But lets face it, not many thought what Van Gogh and Munch did back then was very relevant. What is relevant now is recognition and commerce. And for my money the best Van Gogh is worth £20.000 not £3000.000 + and Edvard Munch, half that. This is not because I don't respect those chaps, but because I do.
JL: The one you after Hiroshiege and Van Gogh looks like you have used some of Hiroshieges incredible pink and reddish sky colours.
BC: I like the fact that I am in the line, copying a copy. Van Gogh new he was 'under' Hiroshiege.JL: The man in front of the pool table in your "Nite Cafe" looks like a ghost of a lunatic asylum worker. These works are really haunting, giddying and hallucinogenic .
BC : I've just moved the waiter round from the back and condensed the room. I noticed Van Gogh put himself sat in the right corner - so I did a picture later of him and Gogan.
JL: Your "Sower" after Millet looks like he's wearing a greaser helmet. Why did you entitle the show, "Handing a loaded gun to my enemy" Enemy meaning who exactly ?
BC The title has two meanings - 1st , its not 'cool' in the real art world to be doing a direct homage in this manner, so I'm giving them more amo to nail me with, + Vincent killed himself with a revolver, so the enemy can be ourselves. The catalog that came out with the show was victory to our enemies.
JL: I read that you were an originator of a group of artists called Stuckists, but left later on. That it was named after a poem you wrote using a astringent quote by your girl friend. "You are stuck, your paintings are stuck, stuck stuck stuck."
CB: Yes, I left in 2001. I rote the manifestoes, with Charles - worth looking at some, but didn't feel comfortable with his leadership and had no wish to lead myself. the title was coined by Charles after a poem of mine about Tracey Emin, an old girlfriend of mine from the 80's who became very successful as a conceptual artist.www.stuckism.com Manifesto at top of page
JL. What kind of art do you think is going to be the future of art?
BC: More conceptual art, but this time painting, or 'surfiss painting'. this was my prediction in 1999 when we formed the stuckists. I said to Charley, they will just get there mob to identikit stuckisim - you won't get a look in mate. 'Its really the first mouse doesn't get any cheese theory' but that's fine.. Always there will be people who allow creativity to flow threw them and those who just nail it to the wall. Today's mainstream are the same as the Victorian mainstream, except that the choclet box brigade at least had some skill and talent
To see more on Billy Childish paintings, poetry, books, music visit
JL: When did you first start writing poetry and making paintings?
BC: Paintings I carried on with from when I was little, so I just never stopped. 1st oil paintings I was about 11 or 12. I started ritting nonsense poetry in 1977. I was a big fan of the early Dadarists -Schwitters in particular, and Edward Lear. I think anti art is good fun, but it should remain anti art - not be sold as today's mainstream. it actually shows great cynicism to sell bad rip-offs of that stuff white wall galleries to the smug of today.
JL: What about Dostoyevsky's "notes from the underground" or other works that may have had influence over your art?
BC: I read note from underground in my early 20's. A big influence was John Fante, Celine, Knut Hamnsun - Hunger. Charles Bukowskie - Early collections. Walt Whitman - people pointed me to him by comparing our work. Letters of Van Gogh.
JL: How would you make the distinction between an authentic and inauthentic artist for lack of a better term and why do you think this matters?
BC: Authentic would mean serious intention to engage with work over a period of time. I contend that Damien Hirst would not pickle sharks for 20 or 30 years in his garden shed through belith, he does it once off purely as because there's a market that will pay cash on the button now - he doesn't invest anything of himself. There is no vision or interpretation, just the object and a weak poem to introduce the notion - or simulated experience of thinking - if you like. In short, if the artist doesn't believe in his work then why should I?
Authentic means a genuine engagement. I prefer authentic over 'original', or 'gimmick' art. Van Gogh copied the masters. He was prepared to pay homage and try to learn. He read scripture and wanted to become a better man thru his life and art. He was authentic, and originality that came from him was because of the first foundation. Lets say that integrity is the basis. Not finance. True art isn't that big of a deal, but it beats fake art hands down. Financial art and conceptual art, and largely abstract art, is fake art. I add abstract art because to make money in painting you best paint large abstracts because corporations don't by pictures of you mother.
JL: What about the phenomenon of 21 year old aspiring artists fresh out of art school asking astronomical 6 figure prices for their art work?
BC: Yes, I've heard of this. A girl at art school couldn't believe my paintings were so cheep. Her tutors told her that they had to ask 10.000 pounds for paintings or they weren't serious artists. I'm not a serious artist.JL: How about artists critiquing their contemporaries in public like the Dadaists and Surrealists using their art, humor and other means?
CB: I think it is good fun, but keeping an eye on our bitterness and remaining honest about our short falls needs to be there as always.
JL What is "sex crimes of the futcher" about?
BC Is this the novel or paintings you refer to?
JL: BothBC The title comes from Dostoyevsky and is quoted in the front of the book
“And there can be no doubt that the Church would look upon the criminal and the crime of the future in many cases quite differently and would succeed in restoring the excluded, in restraining those who plan evil, and in regenerating the fallen.” The Brothers Karamazov". Fyodor Dostoevsky
The paintings are illustrating the suppressed and latent in the mind which we want to shrug off.. People find the paintings difficult, but I point out that stories of this nature come into our houses in news papers and TV every day and are devoured with a certain glee
JL: The energy in some of these looks very raw and quite brutal like a young Basquiat, also Baselitz right side up, but very different. The man in this particular one ( on the left ) brings to mind Charles Bukowski.
BC He is just a drunk seeing himself thru the vail. Yes, old Baselitz got it a bit stupid with his gimmick. its best not to play those games, but I spose he needed a hook to sell his shit. Bisquit, I don't no much. something's there, but too young, too hungry and too many drugs.
- JL: : Do you think post modernism is on it's last legs or even dead?
- BC : Not sure cos its cheep and nasty and has no regard for human sensibilities. Consumerism is post modernism. post modernism will only die when its root is dead. Could be a week or a centaury
- JL: Do you think "the times they are a changing"?
BC: Always Always Always.
