Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Billy Childish
Age: 64
Born: 1959
Born: December 1
Artist
Author
Composer
Guitarist
Musician
Novelist
Painter
Poet
Writer
Chatham
Kent
First
Prepared
Lucas
Really
Wasn
Exhibitions
Left
Sarah
Found
Agreed
Didn
Joining
Place
Offered
Wanted
Controlled
Firsts
Allowed

More quotes by Billy Childish

Image
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
Image
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
Image
I've dubbed myself as an amateur, not because I work in different field, but because I do what I do for love.
Billy Childish
Image
I like feeling at home and knowing people. I like talking about ideas and being friendly.
Billy Childish
Image
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
Image
It is an artist's duty to be on the wrong end of the see-saw.
Billy Childish
Image
I make sure I make a painting - that's my job. And I cook the Sunday dinner.
Billy Childish
Image
My favourite things are jokes, friendliness and feeling comfortable.
Billy Childish
Image
I don't spend a lot of time working if I can help it.
Billy Childish
Image
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
Image
One of my biggest problems in life has been my inability to lie.
Billy Childish
Image
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
Image
I think that the mythology of Van Gogh's life, and the beauty of his paintings, is unstoppable.
Billy Childish
Image
I'm going to get a pair of wire-snips, and I've also started a new campaign to have blank CDs on jukeboxes so you can play the silence.
Billy Childish
Image
People could live very happily without the Turner Prize, but they could not live without real communication and emotion.
Billy Childish
Image
I'm not trying to achieve perfection. I don't like this forced control people have over work.
Billy Childish