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Excerpts from James Baldwin’s essay: The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.
However arrogant this may sound, I want to suggest two propositions. The first is that the poets (by which I mean all artists) are finally the only people who know the truth about us. Soldiers don’t. Statesmen don’t. Priests don’t. Union leaders don’t. Only poets. That’s my first proposition. We know about the Oedipus complex not because of Freud but because of a poet who lived in Greece thousands of years ago. And what he said then about what it was like to be alive is still true.
The second proposition: Conrad told us a long time ago, “Woe to the man who does not put his trust in life”.
Henry James said, “Live, live all you can. It’s a mistake not to.”
And Shakespeare said - and this I take to be the truth about everybody’s life all the time - “Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.” Art is here to prove, and to help one bear, the fact that all safety is an illusion. In this sense, all artists are divorced from and even necessarily opposed to any system whatsoever.”
The first thing an artist finds out when he is very, very young, ( …. before he is fifteen…before he or she has had enough experience to assess his or her experience) - And what occurs at that point in the hypothetical artist’s life is a kind of silence - the first thing he finds out for reasons he cannot explain to himself or to others, is that he does not belong anywhere………………..
The crime of which you discover slowly you are guilty is not so much that you are aware, which is bad enough, but that other people see that you are and cannot bear to watch it, because it testifies to the fact that they are not. You’re bearing witness helplessly to something which everybody knows and nobody wants to face……………
… And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, bullwhips you, what drives you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as I can tell you what it is to suffer, perhaps I can help you to suffer less. Then you make - oh, fifteen years later, several thousand drinks later, two or three divorces, God knows how many broken friendships and an exile of one kind or another - some kind of breakthrough, which is your first articulation of who you suspect we all are.
It is impersonal. This force which you didn’t ask for, and this destiny which you must accept, is also your responsibility. And if you survive it, if you don’t cheat, if you don’t lie, it is not only, you know, your glory, your achievement, it is almost our only hope - because only an artist can tell, and only artists have told since we have heard of man, what it is like for anyone who gets to this planet to survive it. What it is like to die, or to have somebody die; what is it like to be glad. Hymns don’t do this, churches really cannot do it, the price that he has to pay, is a willingness to give up everything, to realise that although you spent twenty-seven years acquiring this house, this furniture, this position, although you spent forty years raising this child, these children, nothing, none of it belongs to you. You can only have it by letting go. You can only take it if you are prepared to give, and giving is not an investment. It is not a day at the bargain counter. It is a total risk of everything, of you and who you think you are, who you think you’d like to be, where you think you’d like to go - everything, and this forever, forever.
_ James Baldwin, 1966.
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Vivienne Roberts Projects is dedicated to showcasing groundbreaking contemporary art that pushes boundaries and sparks conversations. With a commitment to fostering artistic dialogue, the gallery aims to connect artists with diverse audiences and create memorable and transformative experiences.
Formerly, over thirty years, Vivienne gained experience in the secondary market as an agent sourcing Works of Art, and Impressionist and Modern painting, for private and corporate clients.
In 2019 Vivienne Roberts founded ALEPH CONTEMPORARY Ltd, a nomadic gallery featuring carefully selected emerging and established artists. As Artistic Director, she mounted virtual exhibitions during the pandemic. These were followed by exhibitions in a variety of venues - 12 Piccadilly Arcade, The In & Out (Naval and Military Club), Home House, The Bindery, and London Art Fair 2020, 2022, 2023.
By 2023, the gallery at The Bindery became our exclusive exhibition venue, and it underwent a name change to Vivienne Roberts Projects.
