Normally I’m a 12 hour a day, seven days a week kind of working person - I love my job, but Mrs Artistica put her foot down when she announced we were going on a decent holiday - no argument!

So, with a couple of grand on the hip and the car freshly serviced we set off for sunny London town to see, amongst other things, the much discussed Tate rehang. I’d love to report that I was knocked sideways by the new layout or even that I was disappointed by it - truth is it had no descernable effect on me except that a few old friends were out of the vault and back on display. What I really like about the Tate Mod is the feeling of wonderment I get - like a child in Disneyland…

I’m pleased to say that my favourite piece of artwork was there, Duchamp’s “The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even” - gets me every time that one. And, since I came out of the closet and faced the fact that “I am a lover of surrealist art” - I was happy to see the Surrealists in Poetry and Dream.

The Kandinsky exhibition, “The Path to Abstraction”, was a wonderful experience, as was the UBS collection - but Howard Hodgkin was awful - but I’m not going to go there.

Next day we did the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition - funny to see some of the art “luvvies” reaction to the giant statue of a pregnant woman by Damien Hirst - you’d have thought that they would have got used to this sort of thing by now - hey ho…

Finally, our path inevitably wound round town to the National Portrait Gallery, Mrs Artistica’s spiritual home - thence to Waxy’s Little Sister pub in Wardour Street for a few lazy drinks people-watching at the window - what can I say - the quintessential English art day out - lovely!

The following Saturday it was off to St Ives - a seriously unpleasant six hour drive in the sweltering heat - what did we do before we had aircon? I always get a twinge of excitement when I cross the Tamar no matter how many times I go - and this time was no exception. After farting about with the no parking/tourist riddled narrow streets we finally made it to our little holiday flat on the harbour front. Felt like home!

Next morning we were off to the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden - my personal Garden of Eden. There is a feeling in that place, behind those high walls, that you have left St Ives and it’s summer visitors and have been transported to a pure place - not of the 21st century on battered old Mother Earth. Her work is, in my eyes, the finest sculpture ever produced. Sorry Michelangelo, Moore, Giacometti and all you giants in the world of sculpture, this is the girl for me.

Fortunately there was no major Alfred Wallis presence that ruined my first visit to Tate St Ives (thinks - I wonder if one day they’ll pair Alfred Wallis with Howard Hodgkin in a large grey shed somewhere). The John Hoyland exhibition, The Trajectory of a Fallen Angel was a triumph! I was bowled over by this fantastic display of abstract modern art - huge canvasses that screamed their prescence into the quiet rooms. GO AND SEE HIS WORK!

Apart from a few odds and sods and a bit of seagull dodging the rest of the holiday saw me sat by the open picture windows reading my books and just chillin’…

Back in harness tomorrow - just thought I’d share.

The second of our Specials is an interview with Billy Childish, artist, musician, poet and novelist - Wikipedia credits Childish with “…more than 40 collections of poetry, … three novels, … more than 100 full-length independent LPs and … more than 2,500 paintings.” In this interview Childish talks about his art, his music and his recent run-in with Jack White of the White Stripes popular music combo.

Interview conducted by Charles Thomson.

CT: There’s been a bit of a spat with Jack White recently in the media. How and when did you first get to know him, and at that time what was his attitude to you (in particular regarding your approach to music), and yours to him?

BC: I wouldn’t really claim to know Jack at all well. I first heard of his group in the late 90’s when The White Stripes turned up on a small independent label we sometimes did LP’s with in the United States (Sympathy for the Record Industry). Long Gone John, the owner, told me about them and that they were “huge fans” of my stuff. I heard a track or two of theirs in a record shop one time, but I don’t buy records or listen to the radio, so other than that I’m not that familiar with their stuff. But Long Gone John saw a similarity in approach as we’d been playing very stripped-down old blues/punk/ music for the past 15 years or so. We were particularly known in the USA for our uncompromising, home-made recordings. I think Jack liked our stuff.

CT: How did the relationship progress subsequently?

BC: When The White Stripes came to the UK 2000 or 2001 I think, they asked if I’d do some support slots with them. Bruce, our old drummer, was driving them round and lent them his drums and what not, and put them up. They naturally approached us (Bruce, Liam – Toerag studios), being the people who had the sound. I did a solo blues support for them at The Dirty Water Club in Tufnell Park. We’d been playing that slot for over a decade and it was the place for a ‘garage’ band. Jack was very friendly and asked if I might record them on my old half-track machine down in Chatham sometime, which I said was a possibility. He also asked if I would consider appearing on the David Letterman show with them in the United States (which I hadn’t heard of), but again I said it we could talk about it. I was a bit reticent because I didn’t like the sound or the fuss about Jack’s group, but that would be true of almost every type of music I come across. Overall, I found him decent and respectful and liked him. After the gig Jack asked if I could get him a copy of a 45 we did called Headcoat Lane, which he said he particularly liked because of the line “What would you know, you’re only a girl.” I said that I would send him a copy if I could find one. He also mentioned that he had tried to record one of my songs live to acetate when they were gigging in New Zealand. I said, “good, you should record my songs so’s that I can make some money.”

CT: He has accused you of plagiarism: “when you take someone else’s music and put your own lyrics on top of it, it’s still called plagiarism. Something Mister Childish hasn’t learned yet.” It’s not clear whether this refers to his music or other people’s. Do you consider you have done this with his music, and could you give your thoughts on this accusation? Have you even been influenced by any of his music?

BC: No, I don’t think Jack means I’ve copied his music, especially as I’ve never even listened to The White Stripes. Jack has covered a few tunes that we covered earlier on. We recorded Death Letter Blues and John the Revelator, two of Son House’s (a blues musician) numbers. The White Stripes later chose those to cover and record as well, but not the other way round. He must mean that I use other people’s tunes sometimes, but that’s the same as everybody does/has. It’s what Blues music is: to add your own lyrics, or change a tune round; All the original black blues musicians did it and later artists carried that right on. Maybe he should take it up with Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Lead Belly, Sun House, ad infinitum, before he takes it up with low life like me. They all did exactly what Jack says you can’t do - put your own words to old tunes and vice versa. This stuff isn’t rocket science: it’s just 3 chords, stacked up one way or t’other. I think Jack was just in a bit of a rage because GQ magazine quoted me as “not being able to listen to The White Stripes”. It’s a shame it came over that way; I wasn’t singling Jack out particularly, I was just specifically asked about The White Stripes. In truth, I’m not into the modern sound at all, so I don’t like the modern groups, or many old ones for that matter. It’s not just The White Stripes. I’m not a music fan, if you like.

CT: I’d like to ask if you consider if he has been influenced in any way by your music and your attitude to it, if in fact there is any way that he has “plagiarised” you.

BC: No I don’t think that would be fair, but I did do the ground work for a lot of these ‘garage rock’ groups. Back in the 90’s The New York Times cited me as “The undisputed king of garage rock’. Well, that was very nice of them, but I don’t like garage rock and I’m no king. The only garage group I loved were The Mummies, a SF group that were big fans of Thee Mighty Caesars. But even that was really just simple rock ‘n’ roll, same as the best punk music was just simple rock n roll. It’s like this, I don’t want to be Jack White, but he might once of wanted to be Billy Childish, just a little bit. He asked me to go Top of The Pops and paint a picture live on stage with them. Again, I told Jack that I would think about it, but in the end the BBC wouldn’t allow it, so Jack wrote my name on his arm in felt tip pen instead, which I never quite understood. But he meant to help me, I’m sure. I did tell Jack that his mistake was asking the BBC’s permission rather than telling them what was going to happen.

CT: He chose to use the small “Toerag” studios in North London to record in with its old 1960s valve equipment, using the producer Liam Watson, that you have worked with, and even doing a duet with Holly Golightly, whom you started in her musical career, included in gigs for years and put on records. How, to your knowledge did this come about and what do you make of it, particularly in the light of his “plagiarism” accusation?

BC: Yes we recorded in Toe Rag on and off from the early 90’s. Liam got into recording partly because he was a fan of our sound in The Milkshakes. That’s also how Holly came along too, she was a 15 year old in the audience back in 1982 and I made friends with her. Years later she turned up again and we got her to sing with several of the girls. I like to get everyone feeling involved. As to The White Stripes recording at Toe Rag, again, that’s natural. It was quite a famous little studio in the tiny world of garage music and a lot of the Yanks (we were famous in those circles in The USA) thought that I owned it, which is a joke as I never owned anything; that’s all Liam’s hard work. Anyway, Toe Rag would have been an obvious choice to try to get the sound + Bruce was right there showing them London and lending them his drum kit. Jack even got Bruce to design The White Stripes Cover for them, as Bruce used to design a lot of our LP sleeves in the past. And of course if Bruce is about, so’s Holly; she’s more open to music than me and would have been delighted to sing with Jack. Early on I think Jack acknowledged all of this but I’m not sure how he’d stand on it now. It’s a bit like the Tracey Emin game - once upon a time she acknowledged me as a “major influence”, but when I didn’t applaud her stuff she got the knife out. But I think they’re all great. Mad and deluded, maybe, but its all fun and games. I don’t know exactly how all this fame stuff comes about, it’s just a little network that they step into and some money reigns down and good luck to them, ‘cause they need it.

CT: From what you’re saying, he’s been influenced by what you’ve been doing for the last thirty-odd years, and has found some of that very useful to help him find his own direction.

BC: Well, yes. But apart from recording some of what we recorded where we recorded it and having the same person do their art work, there was not much in common, apart from asking Holly along, I suppose, but that’s not much either. I’m not out to get anyone; I’d rather it was underplayed. I just answer questions, have a big mouth and get into a bit of trouble. After I saw Jack’s response to the GQ article in the US, I emailed him saying sorry for upsetting him and signed it “Billy, the big mouthed plagiarist.” He declined to answer, but maybe the English sense of humour doesn’t translate. I’m not bothered about him getting ideas off of us; that’s what it’s all for. Anyway, our sound and style is absolutely different. I think Jack shied away from having me record them when he sensed I wasn’t on board. I was certainly asked by a journalist at the time why I hadn’t produced the White Stripes LP, and I told them because Jack had the good sense not to ask me, and if I’d produced that LP (Elephant), it wouldn’t have even made the bottom of the independent charts, let alone to number one. Besides, I’d go mad if I had to be in a studio for two whole weeks. It negates the point of recording simply. We do our LPs in two or three days: any more than that and I get bored stiff. I’ve got other things to do and I don’t really like music that much.

CT: What’s the update on the disagreement with him and what’s your current view of his music and his approach to his work?

BC: Well, first thing when I saw the GQ article was, oh dear, they’ve gone for Jack a bit. You see, the writer, then the subs, can really give an article a slant if they want to. I was just answering questions about what I liked and disliked and why. Turns out that GQ was annoyed with Jack for refusing to talk to them about me. Several years back Jack interviewed me for Dazed and Confused magazine as one of his heroes, but when GQ asked him about me, he told them that he had nothing to say as he wasn’t really that familiar with my work. I think that pissed them off, so they took the mick out of him for writing an advert for Coca-cola. I suppose Jack’s a bit sensitive about the apparent lack of credibility in having done that, so anyway he lashed out at me because I’ve not been a good father to him, or something, i.e. not finding his music to be my cup of tea. Four years back, Jack told me that his favourite recordings were the ones he made at home in his bedroom. I don’t know, but I guess he might be right. But if you want the big bucks and the big stage, you have to compromise your sound. I haven’t done that: we’re like a local corner shop. The corner shop cannot become Tesco’s and still keep its intimate atmosphere. We’re granny’s home baked cookies, actually baked by grandma, not Mister Tesco.

CT: Do you consider you have plagiarised anybody’s music? What music has influenced you, and to what extent?

I’ve borrowed plenty, mainly in blues, which is really what the blues is: everything is second-hand. It’s the same with punk rock, if you like. Those styles are a depository for the lost and disenchanted, a chance to play without the need of great talent. As it happens, I think that originality is over-rated in our society. Originality usually means gimmick. I just try to be authentic. I mean what I do, and I acknowledge what I borrow, quite a small amount as it happens, and that’s it. Kurt Cobain said that people thought he was original only because he kept his sources obscured. I tell the world what I nick so I’m a plagiarist. Fine, I can be that for people if that’s what they need, but actually, sound and performance is all that matters. There’s no such thing as a good song; otherwise any one could do You Really got Me and it would sound great, whereas The Kinks can’t even do You really Got Me anymore, because they’ve lost the sound. If you aren’t in touch with spirit, then the cake is inedible. In short – I copy everything, because that’s what it’s there for. We’re all stardust and nothing new is coming into being: everything just changes shape and form. My nose, for example, was once a Tyrannosaurus’s toe nail. I just take life and inject it with my unique spirit. That’s everybody’s job, and you have to stay true to do that, to try not to be an egotistical shit all your life. In a word - I’m entirely original.

CT: In general – and I’m not just referring to music here but across the board in art forms – how do you see the subject of plagiarism, influence, interpretation and relationships between any practitioner’s work with that of other practitioners, current or past? How much originality do you really think there is in anyone’s work?

BC: Influence has to be acknowledged and celebrated first and foremost, not our own shabby egos, or we are in big trouble. Life is a very serious business, debts must be paid now, or we are caught in Karma and have to pay later, big time. Our debt is to our fathers and mother first, then to our heroes, Christ or Buddha, or the next door neighbour, who ever. That’s how you pay them back: with honour. Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, Son House, Van Gogh, Holbein, Dostoievski, mum and dad. Everyone is just reinventing the wheel. Nature has it all. Paint from nature and you don’t need ideas: she will give you everything. If you’re not overly neurotic, you don’t need art; then you can just play and not make it a big deal.

CT: Music is just one of the forms you work in. I’d like to talk about your painting, first of all how quickly you work. If you have a canvas, say 24” to 36” longest dimension, how long would it normally take to paint the picture? Have you tried working more slowly, and what has happened? How often are you not satisfied with the first result and have to work on something further at a later date, and how long might that take? How many times might you revisit a canvas?

BC: I paint a picture in 15 minutes, maybe 20, sometime three-quarters of an hour; if it’s all going to hell, 3 hours. I’ve worked slower in the past. If I have trouble I can do that. Sometimes time and effort rescues it, but usually it just tortures it. Most times I like the first go, then come back a couple of hours later and decide whether to add one tiny brush mark; that’s the touch that pleases my soul. I’m trying to let the picture express itself and get out the way, not fudge the issue with technique. Much like music and writing. I might rework a canvas once or twice, a novel 20 times and a song twice. But I’ll paint the same picture 20 times over 20 years and every one will be blindingly different

CT: When did you start painting and could you divide the time since, at least roughly, into distinct periods with stylistic changes? How has your attitude to painting changed over this time (if at all)?

BC: I never stopped painting from age one. When I was a kid 3 –6 it was loose. Then it was colourful from 11 –16, then dark and graphic as a 21 -33 year old drunk. Since 33 I’ve just been working backwards again. That’s when I became an adult, at 33, and I gave up drink and inverted anger. Painting has always been to go somewhere else for me, to be with myself, a means to make life more beautiful and worth living.

CT: I interviewed you in 2001, at the Vote Stuckist show in Brixton, and was surprised when you told me that you sometimes had to go back to a painting and work on it, as it looked too controlled and you wanted to make it look more spontaneous. Over the years, I have come to appreciate there is a high sophistication in what you do. I had never seen your early Chatham Dockyard drawings until the recent show at the Aquarium Gallery and was surprised at their tightness, accuracy and linear precision, as was Eamon Everall, who said, “I didn’t think he had it in him”, and likened them to Hockney’s work. This kind of conventional skill is not something you display overtly, yet a close scrutiny of your paintings reveals that they could not have been done without it. We have talked about Van Gogh in this respect, as people think his work is all about freedom and expression, and we agree the prime characteristic is an incredible control and discipline. I’d like you to talk about the relationship between control, self-conscious knowledge and freedom of expression, as critics such as Sarah Kent or David Lee (of the Jackdaw) seem to view your work as crude daubs.

BC: Yes, sometimes spontaneously takes a lot of work and practice. If the painting/song/poem/novel hasn’t got flow and grace, you have to create an illusion of it, to help it be dirty. It’s like putting on a brand-new starched shirt: you have to go to the woods and roll about in the grime to make it feel comfortable and homely – like what happened to Piglet (Winnie the Pooh) after Kanga washed him clean. From then on, you’re friends with the shirt rather than hating it. Well, when I see a Van Gogh painting in life it makes my teeth itch. I’d call it downright pernickety. It’s a real laugh that people think my slapdash stuff is even in the same country as Vincent’s. As to my careful line drawings, I taught myself to draw like that when I was 16, so’s I could get into art school on their ‘genius clause’. That’s the only way they’d have me in there as I left school with no qualifications. Then I left that behind. Actually it was easy and natural for me to draw with a single precise line back then, because after school I was a fish out of water – being made to work and feeling lost and shy in that alien environment.

As to my ‘daubs of paint’, it took a lot of work to get that free and easy, to be natural. Sometimes it still takes a lot of concerted effort not to draw like an uptight artist. I’ve been working between the tension of my skill and allowing the painting to be as it wants to be since I was 33. The first trick was to not care what others might think of my work. The next was to paint and not care what I thought about it myself. Basically, I don’t bother impressing others, then step it up a gear and don’t bother impressing myself. I don’t show off, or hide behind style, but my style is there: it’s just so big that people can’t see, a bit like my ambition. I’d say this is an aim in life as well, to let go the bullshit and stand closer to truth. Of course art critics are bamboozled by fun, spontaneity and the surface effect of a painting - and life - that’s why they can’t get it and are highly confused. My job is to level life; the critic’s job is to be wrong. I can draw and I still draw, but I don’t show off about it and anyone who actually bothers to see, rather than merely look, will pick that up in my paintings. I stand shoulder to shoulder with all the greats, they understand me like an open book. Strangely they are nothing more and nothing less than the rest of us.

CT: What do you find satisfying as a response to your work, and what do you not? You’ve talked about welcoming criticism, quoted negative reviews and embraced your enemies – even handing them a “loaded revolver” in the title of one show. How does this work and is it a defence mechanism on your part?

BC: I like people to recognize me and my unique spirit. To be seen and to be touched is a wonderful thing. But I don’t crave it enough to become a performing monkey. If the critic misses the truth of me, I feel sad and lonely, but that’s fine too. Me embracing my enemies? Yes, it’s defence of a shy, fragile part of myself, coupled with the realization of the spirit of Christ’s love and the emotional, spiritual reality that to embrace our enemies is to embrace ourselves and that this is what we must do to grow. And to grow is the reason we were born. Beyond that, to have a sense of humour and playfulness and not make a drama out of every little knock life has for us. Existence is everything, yet it’s small beer too, much like art and criticism.

CT: I’ve known you for over 25 years and spent a lot of time trying to work you out, in particular some apparent contradictions. For example, you can take a very big, deep, philosophical view on things, have lot of compassion and understanding for others and help people out, when they need it. You can also be very damning and critical, showing little empathy for anyone that doesn’t fit in with your values, and also get quite concerned with superficial things like having the right image. (You advocate accessing the inner child, yet you certainly weren’t going to dress up as a clown for a Stuckist demonstration, for example, although this is something the child would have no problem with – but the inhibited adult would.) It seems to me that you have not reached a resolution on these things, oscillating between different modes, depending on mood and circumstance: there is an alternation between a limited egocentric attitude and a more evolved “spiritual” stance; and, furthermore, over the passage of time you are progressively making a transition into the latter, with a greater understanding and tolerance of others. I know you have put a lot of time and effort into working on yourself (through Buddhist meditation, for example). I’d be interested in your response.

BC: Yes, I am very heaven and hell like that, and don’t always bridge those fellows comfortably, though I feel this is life’s purpose: to embrace all. I’ve got great overview, loads of compassion, and a wicked angry part that likes to trip others - and me - up. It’s my wild dogs and I’m trying to get friendly with them. I have big issues about control: I want to be in charge of the crash, not just be a passenger admiring the view whilst sat next to the drunken pilot. I think this might be the residue of the sexual/mental abuse I was involved in as a child. Other than that, my inner child is fine, but does find clowns scary and not funny at all. I’m a natural leader and I always thought up the games we would play after school, usually war, and I still treat life like games. I play at being an artist, I pretend to be a musician, and I’m stupid enough to try to write novels. I believe that all that grown ups do is pretend to do things. This is the healthy way to engage with life. If, on the other hand, you really believe that what you do is hugely important, or worse still, is actually who you are, then you are lost, damned and miserable. As to image, everyone knows what haircut they want, and I love dressing up and colours and hats, we can all chose, but it’s best that that is just 50 percent of the show, not the entire content. I can care about every detail of buttons, cloth and boots - as long as its not a straightjacket – and still know it’s only dressing up. I see all life through a telescope, vivid and exaggerated, if you will, and because I live my life on my terms and in my fantasy it means I paint those strange paintings that don’t seem to care, yet with precise detail.
As to negative aspects, I don’t try to suppress them but embrace them: to touch and acknowledge my loves, foibles, angers, egocentricities and then move on. To have a light touch. To forgive myself and everybody. If some days I’m a shit, then I say sorry. Life is a big deal and that’s no big deal, might sum up my feelings.

CT: Thanks.

Childish pictures here and here

Artistica is pleased to present an interview with Charles Thomson, painter and co-founder of the Stuckists. In the interview Thomson talks about his life, his art and his position on all things Tate and Serota.

ARTISTICA - What are your influences? What movements/artists inspire you as a painter?

THOMSON - I sold a drawing of my teddy bear to my grandfather for 3p when I was five - I haven’t got a clue where I got that idea from. Then as a boy I drew loads of battle scenes, derived from comics such as Victor and a series called Classics Illustrated which included Greek myths. As I got older I was fascinated by art books in the library, especially Surrealism. When I was 14, I discovered the then-current hippy alternative culture, graphics in OZ magazine and cover pictures for albums like The Cream’s Disraeli Gears. I did psychedelic posters of Jimi Hendrix. Then I staged mixed-media ‘happenings’ (I was only 16!), which would now be called Performance Art. Dada had a look-in there.

After school I broadened my art history appreciation back to the early Renaissance, and, on a Foundation Art course, I thought I should work to the standards of Renaissance artists: I set up still lives in controlled lighting and drew them meticulously with a pencil (this was a bizarre thing to do, and no one else did - though other students did use the life room). I was also into the Pre-Raphaelites’ slightly hallucinatory intensity.

A major breakthrough in my third year at Maidstone Art College was punk and the influence of another student, Steve Maughan, who drew with a biro on bits of cardboard (and almost failed as a result). I began to draw with a kid’s black wax crayon (I still use them today) and to paint on bits of cardboard which I cut from boxes (the biggest was the box for a fridge which gave me a painting surface 5’ x 8’). This took away my previous preciousness. I couldn’t get lost in detail as the medium wouldn’t allow it. I developed a style of black outlines and flattish colour, which was derived from Van Gogh and German Expressionism, particularly Die Brücke and Max Beckmann, not from Lichtenstein, although most people assume it must be, because it’s the obvious thing that they know. I wanted something organic and expressive, not mechanical and commercial.

What I do today is a direct development of that, though I don’t paint on cardboard any more. Recent influences have been more subtle, such as Joe Machine’s Diana Dors with an Axe painting, which gave me the idea of a person with an object. This lead on to my painting of a woman with a rat on her shoulder. Stuckist ideas have been a great help (even though I co-wrote them), but nowadays, it’s not so much influence from others, as my own life experience which informs what I do in my work.

ARTISTICA - How did you get into art, when did you know you were going to be a painter? A brief history please.

THOMSON - As I said above, I’ve done art from childhood (and then poetry from teenage years also). I’ve always been creative: nothing else has interested me enough. I still don’t know I’m going to be a painter though. For fifteen years I didn’t paint - I was a full-time poet. I took up painting again in 1997. I don’t think of myself as a painter. I just like or need to paint pictures, but I also take photos (5000 in a couple of years) and have made videos. At the moment I feel more like a lawyer, wading through clauses of the Freedom of Information Act and related regulations. I’m also a webmaster, and PR agent for that matter. I was a gallery director in Shoreditch for a while. You might as well add on curator, critic, art historian, designer, art agent, teacher (unpaid) and researcher - that’s just in the professional creative sphere.

ARTISTICA - What are you doing at the moment?

THOMSON - Answering emails, communicating with Fraser Kee Scott on myspace.com about a rock group called Planet of Women, putting stuff on the Stuckist web site, planning group shows and submitting an appeal under the Freedom of Information Act to the Tate to state why they should disclose their acquisitions prices. The latter is not my ideal occupation but I feel it’s the right thing to do at the moment. I am also painting pictures, which makes sense of the rest of it. I am trying some different avenues in painting in case one of them opens up something new, but usually I find a dead-end, so I carry on with the direction I was already in. I am in a situation now where I can spend all day (and sometimes all night) working on things.

ARTISTICA - You seem to like only painting and sculpture, isn’t this rather a limiting/naive viewpoint?

THOMSON - I like lots of things actually - films, music, TV - but I presume you’re talking about the ‘visual arts’. I’m not a great fan of sculpture and I don’t like most (contemporary) painting either. I found very little to enjoy in Saatchi’s Triumph of Painting show (unfortunately). I can’t see that my viewpoint’s naive, as it comes out of being involved with art all my life, not just talking about it and not just going down one track. I was doing performance art in 1969 and my degree show (well, lack of degree show actually as I was the only person in 10 years to fail) in 1979 was an installation, labelled Postmodern by one of the tutors. When Britart came along it seemed very passé. I have not limited myself at all. I’ve done things whole-heartedly and tried whatever came along. That approach inevitably leads to the creation of a set of values about what I want to be bothered with.

Some things are better than other things. That is something people don’t normally have a problem with in other areas of life - entertainment, food, friends, music, clothes etc. People make value judgements all the time, and it is considered not only acceptable but desirable, except in the field of visual art. It is very liberating to be able to jettison junk from ones life and not have to pander to dominant fashionable notions in order to gain success. The bottom line for a lot of people in the art world is that they are not true to themselves, but are imprisoned by a tremendous insecurity that they will be failed by other people’s standards. That is a severe limitation and I got over that one at college, when I realised what I was doing and needed to do for myself was not worth sacrificing so that someone would tell me they had given me a degree. I could validate myself. I didn’t need someone else to do it for me.

I find the critics of my position to be naive. The term Stuckism was obviously pre-emptive and humorous (with a serious point), but it certainly wasn’t saying we were stuck. It was saying we knew people would criticise us for being stuck. It was saying that we knew their side of the story already. What amazed me was the lack of sophistication of critics of Stuckism. They are very easy to bait and seem to have no objectivity about their own position. They don’t cotton on to the deliberate ploy of challenging taboos and seem to think everything we do is from some kind of wide-eyed innocence. You are allowed to say “painting is dead” (or as Tate Chairman Paul Myners would put it “painting is the medium of yesterday”), but not “conceptual art is crap” (not even “tat” for that matter, as Ivan Massow discovered). That is the dominance of transience and fashion, which is both naive and limiting.

ARTISTICA - Tell us about the Stuckists and how the movement came about.

THOMSON - A group of people with varying degrees of connectedness with each other have been working and evolving since the late seventies in art, poetry, writing and music. In 1979 six of us formed The Medway Poets (including Billy Childish, Bill Lewis and Sexton Ming). It was an incredibly pressured and creative time and established the basis on which we are still working. Tracey Emin came along as an 18 year old fashion student, and what she learned then still permeates her work. People went their different ways, and in 1999 I had the idea to re-form the group with a new name and a specific art agenda in the Britart environment. It didn’t change what was going on with the artists, but it did present us to a wider audience through a bigger public platform. Billy Childish and I then co-founded it officially (he left after a couple of years, because he doesn’t like groups).

ARTISTICA - Some people say that you are taking this confrontation with Sir Nicholas Serota et al too far - who is being hurt in this situation?

THOMSON - Some people think any confrontation with anything is going too far - which is odd as the most complimentary thing you can say to anyone in the art world is that what they are doing is “challenging” - Serota certainly says so. It seems however that there is a prohibition on challenging the challengers. As far as I am concerned the “confrontation” should go a lot further, and is at a very early stage. Whether I use my time for it to go further or not is a different matter.

There is no intention to hurt anyone. In fact, John Bourne, the founder of Stuckism Wales, wrote to Serota after our last demo (when we had a conversation with him) to make precisely that point. John pointed out that we have a right to express our point of view, and Serota fully acknowledged that in his reply (though he obviously wasn’t very pleased with how the press was dealing with us expressing our point of view). Sometimes the truth hurts, but it’s the best thing in the long term. The people who are really being hurt are not even born yet. They will experience what we leave them. Art feeds people’s souls and the only way most of us can gain that is from public collections.

The Tate is seriously deficient in areas of early to mid twentieth century art because of the narrow collecting policy of its directors and trustees of the time. Anybody that confronted that narrowness at the time would now be vindicated and praised, though they would not have been then. The Tate’s collecting policy is equally narrow today. Serota doubtless thinks he’s avoiding the mistakes of the past and is backing the right horse this time, but the mistake is in backing any one horse in the field. That is to gamble that one’s own hunch is the correct one, which is the prerogative of the private collector, not the public administrator.

The only sound policy for a public institution is what the Director of Tate Britain, Stephen Deuchar, promised in 2000 and has since lamentably failed to deliver, namely a “comprehensive overview”. I have my own judgement and think conceptual art is over-rated and pretentious. That is my right as an individual. However, if I were in charge of the national collection, I would include it, because it is an area of current artistic practice and of historic interest. In fact, at the Stuckism International gallery I had a cabinet of conceptualism with examples like a Mike Dawson brick painted gold and marked £200, so that people could make a direct comparison.

That is the sort of thing that the Tate should be doing, but Serota doesn’t have that breadth. He is actually very parsimonious. It has to be what he considers “difficult” or “challenging”, but that kind of work is now done mindlessly because it has become the convention. It is a very safe route in the contemporary art world, because it guarantees acceptance. It is the only value he can engage with. It is presented as the most valuable attribute and I have no doubt he is perfectly sincere about it, but that doesn’t mean it’s right and it doesn’t mean the future will think it’s right. Values that were considered obvious and unassailable in Victorian times are certainly not considered to be so nowadays.

It is clear to anyone that has bothered to study any history and think about it, that the unforeseen can easily invalidate a contemporary consensus. There are plenty of precedents for fashionable work being considerably downgraded later. The French nineteenth-century academic painter Bouguereau is a classic example. The reverse is of course also true - work dismissed by the establishment at the time can later seen as the really worthwhile art. Other values that were not anticipated turn out to be the important ones. The only sound policy is to represent properly the diversity of contemporary creativity. It is the curator’s job to find out what’s going on and include it - not ignore it because it doesn’t fit in with his/her personal vision. It is, one might say, a question of experience, not interpretation.

ARTISTICA - If conceptual art is a load of nonsense, why do people pay so much for it? Are you saying that the world is full of rich fools?

THOMSON - People buy art for all sorts of reasons. A lot of people see it now as an investment and a lot of people have made good profits out of it, so they’re not rich fools (just richer). Art is also a status symbol. I have a friend with experience of American multi-millionaires, who have this approach to art. You can buy expensive cars off a production line, but an artwork is a one-off and exclusive. It bestows some of the celebrity glamour of media personalities on the owner of a well-known artist’s work. There are a lot of reasons why people buy art which may not have anything to do with the inherent quality of the work itself. In fact many of the people buying it know so little about it, and have such little trust in their own feeling for it, that they have art consultants to tell them what to buy. If something is fashionable (which is a mild form of collective mental imbalance) people give it a disproportionate value and it becomes “must have”. What they’re actually paying for is the feeling of belonging to something which gives the illusion of validating them. But certainly, if they are paying a huge amount and thinking that they are buying great art, then I would say they are mistaken.

ARTISTICA - Considering the way he brought the Tate to life - and the excellent work he is still doing, shouldn’t Serota be forgiven the odd failing in his head because his heart is in the right place?

THOMSON - Unfortunately, it’s not an odd failing (I presume you mean ‘occasional’ rather than ‘peculiar’, although I’d agree with the latter). It’s just a failing and it’s pervasive. He is an outstanding organiser, promoter and administrator, albeit by common report a control freak - but then you have to be if you are a person of unusual ability. He can create a space that people love (Tate Modern) but he can’t fill it with art that people love. That’s because he doesn’t operate from the heart as far as art is concerned. He operates from the head, and that doesn’t work with art.

There is something distinctly anal about the combination of theoretical exactitude and vulgar decay that permeates the Tate. It is exemplified by past Turner Prize choices such as Hirst’s cut-up rotting cow’s innards all neatly placed in pristine vitrines, or Starling’s abandoned musty shed cleanly labelled in the middle of a spotless white room. The result of walking round Tate Modern is not an experience of the marvel of creative profundity which gives meaning to life, but more akin to the detritus of a dryly analytical bureaucrat reverting to an infantile stage during an extended breakdown.

I find Serota much more agreeable on a personal level. He seems a caring and compassionate person as far as artists themselves are concerned, and even gives my colleagues and me the time of day, which most people in his position wouldn’t. The issue is not about personalities. It’s about a cultural heritage for the future and he is creating a disaster zone from all the best intentions. It is astonishing that someone who tries so hard to be broad-minded can end up with such an exclusive vision.

ARTISTICA - What do you think of the current crop of critics and art journos - how do they fit in with your philosophies?

THOMSON - I do not have a very high opinion of the current standards of the critical profession. This was not helped when a critic explained to me some years ago that it is not done to step out of line with the power bloc, as the freebies and exclusive invitations will suddenly not be forthcoming. There are of course exceptions, Brian Sewell being the most notable, but he has complained that he has often been frustrated trying to get even basic PR material such as images of work, normally widely supplied. A few years ago there was a petition signed by leading figures in the art world demanding that he should be sacked as the Evening Standard critic for his views. Obviously a critic isn’t allowed to have his own views. Louisa Buck in her book Moving Targets (published by the Tate) details individuals approved by the establishment. She describes Richard Cork’s replacement by Sewell at the Standard as “a black day for contemporary art”. Jay Jopling has revealed that the petition to sack Sewell originated at a secret meeting at the Tate to counter negative publicity. Jopling didn’t sign the petition, as he saw Sewell’s opposition was actually excellent publicity.

Critics are generally spoon-fed and end up not providing analysis, insight, evaluation and exploration of the wider field, but merely describing what is approved of. David Lee in Jackdaw magazine has done a statistical analysis, which shows coverage is only given to a handful of galleries such as the White Cube. My own experience with the Stuckists has been most illuminating. Stuckism has got a national profile. It’s studied in colleges; people write dissertations about it. There have been numerous shows in the last seven years, including a major five-month exhibition in a national museum, but if you had relied on most critics during that time, you wouldn’t even know it existed.

Art journalists are an entirely different breed, because they work for the news editor, not the arts editor, so their agenda is just what makes a good story. This leads to a neutral and objective position as far as the issues and warring parties are concerned. The journalists are not on the art world gravy train.

ARTISTICA - Finally, who are the up and coming new artists that you like - where do see art going in the short to medium term future.

THOMSON - I’ve seen a lot of artists’ work and, if I like something, I’ve often exhibited it in a show. That’s the point of Stuckism - promoting art. Some people ‘join’ the group(s) and some don’t. There are many strong artists I have worked with in the Stuckists. These include Paul Harvey (who creates unfailingly beautiful images), Peter McArdle, Ella Guru, Bill Lewis (a profound inventive man of mythology), Philip Absolon, Eamon Everall and Joe Machine (whose My Grandfather Will Fight You is a classic). Sexton Ming and Wolf Howard have left. I’ve just acquired my third Wolf Howard painting - of a couple in the snow. It’s magical, mysterious and insightful, but achieved through what appears to be a very simple and exuberant technique.

Mandy McCartin has always been a guest exhibitor who doesn’t like belonging to groups. Her work is an intense visual confection of urban life. Gina Bold started with the Stuckists. She is unusually inventive and psychologically explorative with a rare aesthetic sense, and I think she will get wider success. I thought that too about Stella Vine, who was also first shown by the Stuckists. There is no excuse for her work not being in the Tate - she has created icons for our age. Cathy Lomax and her Transition Gallery artists merit more attention: it was where Saatchi found Stella Vine, but he took the limelight and the gallery didn’t get the credit they deserved (nor did the Stuckists for that matter). I should also mention Billy Childish, who has certainly been marginalised because he doesn’t kow-tow.

Recent graduates are always problematic, because it takes time for them to establish whether they’re even going to bother carry on doing art or find a job that actually pays. I exhibited Katherine Gardner, Susan Finlay and Daniel Pasteiner a few years ago. Susan and Daniel ended up in the Royal College of Art, and Katherine was working at the White Cube when I last spoke to her. I have seen work I like by Lisa Freeman and Henry Hudson (who were both in shows at La Viande gallery in Shoreditch - my old place. Henry has also exhibited recently with Stella Vine). Abby Jackson, who has showed at La Viande too, has an amazingly sensual and intuitive way of painting and remarkable ideas that fuse with strong emotion.

The environment surrounding artists and the ideas they are exposed to exert a subtle but pervasive influence on their work. A lot of artists I have met and spoken to have had to fight against opposition to do what they want to. That takes energy which should be directed to creativity and inevitably imposes inhibitions. That’s human nature. Stuckism has provided a supportive context for a lot of artists, myself included, and artists have told me how much it has helped to give them confidence to go further with what they are doing.

I think Stuckism has had a far greater effect on art in this country than is acknowledged. Certainly the critic Edward Lucie-Smith has seen Charles Saatchi’s new direction as following our lead. There is, however, a strongly-entrenched multi-million pound establishment which has no interest in changing the status quo. Charles Saatchi has cleverly dumped Britart while the going was good. He has wanted for some years to be there with a new movement to pave the way like he managed with Britart in the nineties, but the only thing that’s emerged since then with a distinct character has been Stuckism. He’s seen the potential and obviously noticed that advancing painting over conceptualism generates controversy. Now he’s trying to do his own version of it, but he can’t because he’s making a copy and not the real thing.

Saatchi has adopted the position that we took in 1999 in direct opposition to him. He has become a Stuckist, even using our phraseology to say painting is the “most vital” (i.e. not just equal but superior) artistic means. That is going to have a big knock-on effect as those artists waiting for Saatchi to buy up their installations now realise he’s looking for paint on canvas. It is very viable commercially too, as (despite your previous question about “rich fools”) most money has always been spent on paintings - that’s why Hirst did a production line of them. Even the Turner Prize is hopping on the bandwagon, and the new Tate Modern re-hang has a room proclaiming that Britart was really about painting (talk about revisionism).

Stuckism’s aim was to replace Britart in this country and to change art worldwide. The Remodernism manifesto that Billy Childish and I wrote in 2000 ended: “Let there be no doubt, there will be a spiritual renaissance in art because there is nowhere else for art to go. Stuckism’s mandate is to initiate that spiritual renaissance now.” I would not like to speculate how widely and how quickly that might occur, and it’s not really my concern, as it’s out of my hands. I am going to carry on with what I am doing anyway.

Ends

Charles, I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview and for answering the questions in such depth.

Charles Thomson pictures here

Stuckists website here