2002-05-13 - 12:26 p.m.
BILLY CHILDISH LOOKS BACK ON STUCKISM AND TRACEY EMIN
Billy Childish was a co-founder of Stuckism, but left the group in June 2001. He reflects on it and other things in a recent interview. Read it on http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/2002_feb/interview_billy_childish.html
Pertinent extracts are reproduced below.
"Most of us live in a phoney or fake self a lot of the time. I’m guilty of this as well but I don’t think that that’s really a great achievement. So although with the Stuckists, I was with a group of people whose work I didn’t like and the way ideas were put across I didn’t like but I thought that might be quite good. I thought – why do we have to be in a group where everyone condones each other? – why does it have to be so fragile? – and I wrote manifestos for them which I liked, which were about this idea that it was permissible to have another opinion. Which I found out it wasn’t! The Art Orthodoxy at the moment will not permit an opinion that amateurism is better than professionalism, or that amateur is more professional than professionalism I’d say! It’s elitist and ridiculous the art world. That isn’t a great discovery. I’m a bit naïve sometimes and the most simple things surprise sometimes.
"... that Stuckist name is quite good. I think it’s a nice tone for everybody. I think it suits everyone nicely. Because the idea is that that’s what you mustn’t be. Of course we’re not really. Everything is an appearance. You have to work for at until it changes - it suddenly moves again. It means that you’re dealing with reality and that you’ve got your nose against something.
"... So me and Tracy could argue about who’s stuck or not but in this life Tracy needs to do what she’s doing. And alright, maybe she’s going to be really woken up in a nasty unpleasant way but that’s the only way that it’ll happen. That’s her business. And she’s going to find out that these things don’t solve the problems that she thinks they will. She comes from a damaged background and wants it all to be nice and thinks it can be by avoiding stuff. She’ll find out that it's not the case. The same as the First World War, people have to go through these things. The only things that make us address ourselves are the big knocks. They’re the only things big enough to make us question what’s going on. That’s why we’re here on earth anyway. So you can change. Which is what I’m most afraid of. But it gives you this opportunity because you can’t just have a good time and if you did just have a good time well – you know people who are just having a good time because you meet them and they’re fucking annoying and they’re arseholes and they don’t get real. And we’ve got to get real. That’s the point."
