Over 30 of Childish’s works will be on view at Villa Schöningen through January 14, 2018, including new landscapes, nudes, still lifes, and self-portraits. A majority of the works in the exhibition will be presented to the public for the first time in Potsdam.
Billy Childish (b. 1959) is a writer, musician, and one of the preeminent figures in contemporary painting. The nonconformist conceives of his work as part of an epoch-spanning conversation of great outsiders that reaches back from punk to Dada to classical modernism: to the German Expressionists, the Fauves, and the Swiss Symbolists. The intensity of their artistic expression and wholly unironic verisimilitude are what interest the artist and what he brings to our present through his work. “I think that the mythology of Van Gogh’s life, and the beauty of his paintings, is unstoppable.” – Billy Childish
At Villa Schöningen, Billy Childish’s expressive works will be on view in a particularly fitting location: The examination of history as well as current, socially relevant themes takes place at Villa Schöningen through the restored architecture of Ludwig Persius and through the diverse exhibition program. In addition, the selected motifs of the works evoke the surroundings of the villa by seeming to reflect the special significance of the landscape in “Prussian Arcadia” in the light of our time.