The Musings of a 'Gifted Loser'- An interview with Billy Childish

The Musings of a 'Gifted Loser'- An interview with Billy Childish

26 February, 2010
by: Lauren Romano

Lauren meets outspoken 'hippy in a Homburg' Billy Childish to talk about all things art and plenty more besides...

I’m sitting on a little rickety stool, admiring the chaotically captivating surroundings of the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, an ancient cast-iron relief press to my left, a melange of work-in progress canvases just within eyeshot. I'm surrounded by dilapidated antique furniture and tottering piles of books when Billy Childish emerges in full moustachioed and bow-tied glory.

And what an entrance it is. After apologising for being half an hour late – “I was messing around,” he says – Childish launches into a highly amusing spiel about journalists and art critics and the unbelievable things that have been written about him. Apparently if he recognises 20% of what’s written about him then that’s good. He continually drops in lines like, “If you get a plumber out, you don’t expect him to fix your plumbing,” and the same goes for art critics. As I try to keep up with his hurtling dialogue, making a metal note of potentially antagonising questions to strike off the list, Billy assures me that my naive impulse to actually go to exhibitions and write about the art in front of me will be quashed in due course. It’s a bizarre opening to an interview, but by the time we settle down into the weathered Chesterfield and armchair, I feel very much at ease.

February saw the opening of Unknowable but Certain, a retrospective of Childish's work across all manner of media at the ICA, the first major arts institution to exhibit his work. How did this come about, I wonder. “Well,” Billy begins, “I always say to people that I walked in and said, 'Oi you slag, I want an exhibition!'” While this seems plausible, it isn’t exactly how things panned out. The exhibition was, as Billy explains, actually thanks to Matthew Higgs, director of White Columns, and his work with Mark Sladen at the ICA.

Invariably cast as an ‘uncommercial artist’ Billy’s involvment with the establishment might appear a bit uncharacteristic, but that’s where we’d be wrong. “It’s not a problem at all,” Billy assures me. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of things with the ICA in the past anyway. I’ve had a sort of ongoing relationship with them. I’ve been working for over 30 years and it’s nice to be recognised for what you do”.

Still fiercely independent, Billy doesn’t see exhibiting in such an institution a compromise, “I’m not being asked to change; just do what I do, and I like that. I mean, I don’t actually have problems working with institutions – I just don’t aim to do it. I can do an exhibition at the Tate – just because I disagree with how the Tate is run, and the way that the British art establishment is run has got nothing to do with it. If that was the environment I was aiming for and I was making work to put into those institutions it would break my heart. But I’m not courting them – they can court me if they like, that’s not a problem at all.”

At the heart of Billy’s work is a realistic and honest engagement that isn't specifically aimed at any audience: “It’s purely myself,” he says. “I see it as part of a spiritual process and that's why it will resonate with other people. I don’t aim it out – I aim it in. It doesn’t work for people who want fluff or razzmatazz: it’s home cooking compared to McDonald’s.” But it does still resonate with rather than isolate people because we all want, in Billy's view, “something that’s made by someone who means what he’s doing because it means something to them. This is what gives it its intrinsic value and edge.”

Having lived in Chatham for almost all of his life, Childish sees London as an “expensive waste”: “I’ve never hung out with pop people, I’ve never hung out with art people and I’ve never tried to do any form of social climbing. And that’s the only value of London.” For someone who has never actively solicited the limelight, it really is quite extraordinary that Childish is so often labelled as a ‘cult figure’. Childish insists that the art scene doesn’t “suit [his] character” and when I ask him about his favourite emerging artists and writers, his response is both incredulous and refreshing in equal measure. “No, no, I won’t know about that,” he muses. “No, I find that not interesting – it would be a busman’s holiday. I don’t follow music, writing or art particularly because I find it dull. I like art and I like writing and I like music. But I don’t listen to music at home much and I don’t visit galleries – galleries give me the Heebie-jeebies. I find them cold and sterile and my soul is too sensitive.”

Billy Childish was given the name in 1977 by a friend, because, as he explains “If someone went past in an old Cortina, you’d call them Billy Cortina. I used to pretend I was mentally impaired on the tube, and that’s why I was called Billy Childish.” And he's always cultivated a highly idiosyncratic, recognisable style: “When I was little I got an old homburg off my mum’s friend and I bought a bow-tie and I used to wear all sorts of things. It’s a way of dressing up and playing and being in the world rather than having to wear a uniform. And then you’ve got the nice coincidence that you don’t have to wear things made by children – underpaid children – you can have things made by underpaid adults in England. I’m really a hippy kid in a Homburg.”

In the past Childish has been referred to as 'misunderstood' and his hangman books and record label daubed 'the enterprise of a gifted loser' (something Billy finds highly amusing). Apparently this is because we generally “don’t like people who embody contradictions” and, as Billy informs me, “because I please myself and am not trying to win friends or like fashionable things and that. People think that I must be bitter or obstinate, so misunderstandings are rife.” As for the ‘gifted loser accolade’, Billy philosophises that losing is actually very levelling and something everyone understands.

When I ask him about his aspirations, Billy says, “I’m interested in enlightenment and in realising that enlightenment isn’t necessarily something that you strive for, or is obtainable by striving for it: the only thing you can do is engage with the moment”. That’s not to say he'd turn down another big show if offered it: “if I get a show somewhere in a big place I’d be pleased as punch”.

As the interview draws to a close, the wise sage has these pearls for aspiring artists, writers and musicians : “I would advise people to do what they like doing. The way to do that is to remember what you liked doing when you were a kid. It’s got to have value to you to have value to others. And the way to have value to you is to follow your star. That’s what all people should do – follow their star.”

Billy Childish- Unknowable but Certain is at the ICA until 18.04.10.

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Lauren Romano