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I loved moustaches. I used to draw myself with one. When I was 14, I was really into war and Van Gogh.

Billy Childish

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.
BILLY CHILDISH

Exhibition Joining Want
Failure is fantastic, because you meet yourself and get to know your limitations. This is how I express myself, and I can’t do it any other way.
BILLY CHILDISH

Fantastic Knows Way
I did not like prizes at school. I didn’t like tests or exams, or the 11+, or O-levels. Later I hated B.A.s and M.A.s. The reason I hated them is that I don’t like being tested, failed or falsely praised by anyone.
BILLY CHILDISH

Levels Reason School Tests
Bowie and McCartney arrived, and the biscuits and caviare started and I left immediately. I don’t like shouting across rooms, with people in shiny suits who look like used-car salesmen.
BILLY CHILDISH

Cars Looks People Shouting
My favourite things are jokes, friendliness and feeling comfortable.
BILLY CHILDISH

Favourite Feelings Jokes
I think that the mythology of Van Gogh’s life, and the beauty of his paintings, is unstoppable.
BILLY CHILDISH

Painting Thinking Unstoppable
One of my biggest problems in life has been my inability to lie.
BILLY CHILDISH

Inability Lying Problem
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

Amateur Different Fields Love
I like being on the margins. You work better there.
BILLY CHILDISH

Better Margins Work
We had the same kind of unemployment here as they had in the worst hit places in the North and you’re meant to be on a cushy wicket in the South.
BILLY CHILDISH

Squares Towns Unemployment
Being a fan of authentic Dada, I find today’s art – what I call ‘Bankers’ Dada’ – mind-numbingly dull.
BILLY CHILDISH

Art Challenging Hero Work
When I was better known than her, she put my name in that tent. I was asked to do Celebrity Big Brother, but why should I? We live in an age where fame is not related to what you do.
BILLY CHILDISH

Age Brother Celebrity Live Name Names
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

Challenging Heroes Late Resistance Schnauzers Seen Witness
I don’t spend a lot of time working if I can help it.
BILLY CHILDISH

Helping Time Working
We are not actually in charge of life, yet we behave as if we are the masters of our own destiny. The realization of this fact is quite a hard one. The ridiculousness of our pomposity and presumption can only result in anger or humor.
BILLY CHILDISH

Actually Behave Destiny Facts Quiet Realization
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

Blue Hippy Punk Rocks Since Years
I loved moustaches. I used to draw myself with one. When I was 14, I was really into war and Van Gogh.
BILLY CHILDISH

Moustache Used War
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

Believe Mad People
I gave up drinking lots of whiskey and began to practice yoga and meditation. As a result I am not dead.
BILLY CHILDISH

Drinking Health Yoga
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

Campaign Cd Jukeboxes Play Silence
It is an artist’s duty to be on the wrong end of the see-saw.
BILLY CHILDISH

Artist Ends Saws
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

Left Place Really Wanted
I’ve always liked New York, as I like towns with an edge and New York has a European feel, so when I came to play music here in the ’80s it was a surprise to me.
BILLY CHILDISH

Country Music Play Towns
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

Art Book Drawing

I loved moustaches. I used to draw myself with one. When I was 14, I was really into war and Van Gogh.

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I loved moustaches. I used to draw myself with one. When I was 14, I was really into war and Van Gogh.

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