On Frieze & Failure

By Verity Babbs
On the 12:35 Southampton to Waterloo Train, 12/10/2022

I wanted to go to Frieze. Not to see anything at Frieze, but to be ‘significant’ enough to get a pass for it. To be seen going. It feels like the panicked yearning to get an invite to the sleepover of the horrible-but-popular girl in school, even though I know that when I get there she and her friends (all rich and beautiful) will make me feel miserable. But I must go, in case I too am given access to that inner circle.

I did get a pass - a guest pass from a friend, which reminds me that the whole notion that you have to be ‘significant’ to gain entry to the fair is nonsense. I was thrilled. I was going to the sleepover.

This morning, I feel horrible. I am tense and self-critical and in a spiral of comparison that I have worked hard over the last year to pull myself out of. The last time I felt this dismissive of my own work and career future, incidentally, was this time last year - at Frieze 2021. 

For me, Frieze represents two things:

The people of the commercial art world who I had spent years courting and then out-hand rejecting as soon as I sensed that they didn’t want me. Unpaid internships where the managers were bullies. Corporate copywriting clients I never heard back from again after a promising first project. Editors I had done sloppy work for during mental health relapses. People my age who had overtaken me in the past 4 years in curatorial experience, press features, and followers. I moved out of London to get the taste of these failures out of my mouth - leaving the city which was filled with people I believed I had let down. Frieze is a collection of the unspoken rules I have broken over the years. I have never felt as neurodivergent as I do when in formal commercial art spaces.

It also represents being in - which is secretly all that I want. Going to Frieze means that I haven’t cut off all ties from an art world which I secretly hoped would one day celebrate me and my work. By going to Frieze I was still in the race. 

“You’re an orange in a competition for apples” my mother would tell me growing up. I have since spent my career creating things - videos, comedy nights, spaces for my writing - all so that I wouldn’t need to face rejection from the ones that already exist. Frieze represents my biggest dichotomy - my urge to hide and destroy all ties to past failures, and my deep desire to be accepted. Frieze represents the people for whom I was not enough. Attending isn’t so much of a “fuck you” but a “please love me”. Coming back to Frieze means I must face one of my worst fears: watching other people achieve the success I fear I am capable of but am not good enough to see through. 

A stop away from Waterloo, I suddenly remember that I must unlock my jaw. I have been grinding my teeth the entire journey. Frieze is like sleeping with a man I know is bad for me, yet I yearn for his approval more than anything on earth. If my late teens are anything to go by, I will let this habit rule my life for a while longer. 

If you have a pass for next year, please let me know.