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Before 1999, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas offered to get me exhibitions, but joining the Stuckists put a kaibosh on all that - because I wasn't prepared to be controlled. I agreed to co-found the Stuckists to be allowed to say what I wanted, and I left the Stuckists because I didn't really want to be in them in the first place.

Billy Childish

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Billy Childish
Age: 64
Born: 1959
Born: December 1
Artist
Author
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Guitarist
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Novelist
Painter
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Chatham
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More quotes by Billy Childish

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Being a fan of authentic Dada, I find today's art - what I call 'Bankers' Dada' - mind-numbingly dull. The most challenging work I've seen of late is by The British Art Resistance. Their document, 'A Call for Heroes in an Age of Cowards', is apt in these days of witless chancers.
Billy Childish
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I'm not trying to achieve perfection. I don't like this forced control people have over work.
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It is an artist's duty to be on the wrong end of the see-saw.
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I like feeling at home and knowing people. I like talking about ideas and being friendly.
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We believe in a society in delusion, and if you're awake and not deluded people tell you you're mad. That's why I'm a freak and they're not. But I'm actually not.
Billy Childish
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One of my biggest problems in life has been my inability to lie.
Billy Childish
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I've dubbed myself as an amateur, not because I work in different field, but because I do what I do for love.
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I liked drawing and painting, because the only failure would be to listen to the doubters who wanted me to stop drawing and painting because 'you aren't going to make a living doing that.' I liked looking in art books at the work of painters.
Billy Childish
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I coined this term 'freedom thru limitation' back in the '90s because I was sick of art being treated like pop, because of this boring 'anything can be art' theory.
Billy Childish
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I make sure I make a painting - that's my job. And I cook the Sunday dinner.
Billy Childish
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I don't spend a lot of time working if I can help it.
Billy Childish
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I think that the mythology of Van Gogh's life, and the beauty of his paintings, is unstoppable.
Billy Childish
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My favourite things are jokes, friendliness and feeling comfortable.
Billy Childish
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People could live very happily without the Turner Prize, but they could not live without real communication and emotion.
Billy Childish
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I've not been an admirer of contemporary music since punk rock went off the boil in 1977, but once a year I'll listen to 'Spiral Scratch' by the Buzzcocks, or 'Hippy Hippy Shake' by the Swinging Blue Jeans. Otherwise, I can put up with Chopin or shakuhachi flute in the background.
Billy Childish