I've looked forward to watching this doc so I can finally get a grasp of Billy Childish. I know that he's influenced a lot of early 2000s art school types (or the types that inspired them) and he created 2 art movements that almost no one has heard of, but are of interesting note: Stuckism & Remodernism.
Now the film presents Childish as an underground legend thats been fairly & unfairly ignored by the UK media for being a "pure artist" and too confrontational. Really the film is a character study of the typical 80s/90s punk rock veteran living on the fringe. Its a bit standard tragically. Drunken abusive father. Acting out violently (in this case involving sex with a dog). Burning bridges with or inspiring more famous artists. Failed capitalist celebrity dreams and then a transformation into an angry hermit who fights the power with somewhat deranged outsider art. Childish has a legion of fans because its a universal story and his is personalized to the British sensibility.
But this isn't as heroic or romantic or sexy as "Blank City". Childish's art is not very good. Thats the appeal. He fully embraces his unoriginality and expects us to sympathize and focus on the minor bits of originality within it. This defines his version of Remodernism which No Wave filmmaker Amos Poe also calls his aesthetic. Childish's interpretation is a return to the best examples of Modernity and a rejection of every progressive and postmodern movement. The appeal to conservativism, white nationalism, rightwing is obvious and touched on too briefly. He flirts with Hitler, fascism, the usual middle age UK working class hero crap (I'm happy that he's apparently critical of Donald Trump, but I don't think he even sees a connection). Its such a boring aesthetic to me and doesn't even constitute as art. Its simply copying & playing to ghosts of overrated artists who can't change things. Not punk at all.
Ironically the best segment of the film covers his ex-girlfriend Tracey Emin becoming a star of the art world by copying, reflecting & commercializing Childish's already stylized derivativeness. Childish mocks her and then we cut to Childish opening a gallery of (almost) Van Gogh reproductions. To him, reproducing other's work is the ultimate punk gesture, maybe the sacrifice of original craft is some message of generational confession or whatever. It strikes me as pretentious. He mocks artists like Nick Cave throughout the film for selling out by stealing the blues and compares Emin to a white singer exploiting black music (yet compliments Elvis). At the end of the day, it seems Childish resents his contemporaries not so much for their capitalism or commercialism but their success and similarity to his own work.
He's a great example of the confused morals of Gen X's hackiest entertainers. They have something to say but can't say it creatively. They aren't radical politically but want that label. Their only chance at seeming progressive and important is to denigrate the last century's innovations as wrong. Its just anti-social childishness & elitism masquerading as purity & punk.
This is why I call much of Hollywood and mainstream culture's faux-counterculture "Remodernist". Its trying to unmake PostModernism and return to old school values, classic formulas, etc. while incorporating just enough liberalism & multiculturalism to not be labelled what it really is: Nazism. Its a purge of unwanted, exotic, liberal ideas while also exploiting those ideas. Like a Jurassic Park remake with a hotter female lead and a macho meathead hero. Or a Star Wars film built around toy demographics. This stuff is anti-democratic propaganda built on the backs of democrats. Such a weird phenomenon to start a Millennium.
Billy Childish's story is not inspiring in the least. Its very sad and frustrating but the filmmakers know this and scrutinize him justly. But they (& we) pick up on the fact that this guy has a following and taps into some dark, fringe version of demented humanism. He's a strong-willed and somewhat clever guy who rips off very sophisticated work well. But he's not an artist. He's just a rip off artist who is still independent.
*What pissed me off worst about this film were the fans and friends of the subject praising his copied, synthesized, cliche aesthetic. He simply places himself in radical artists' style while never once, in this documentary's interviews, giving credit or showing praise to his influences. That is so typical. Maybe I'm misunderstanding this artist but the film presents him pretty poorly and I don't think they had any real agenda besides actually covering
for him.
