Freeze/ Frieze / Frees
On renewing perspectives in this cold world
I spent the last days of winter fighting the urge to declare war. When quitting a job at a toxic work environment, it’s tempting to cause a ruckus on the way out. After being chewed up and spat out, it feels appropriate to play the role of the bitter pill.
Social media is the worst enabler for this kind of behavior. A provocative post on IG can transform a disgruntled employee into a martyr – tossing a match into the dumpster fire behind you can be framed as a noble deed. As I was drafting my resignation, an open letter from a former Anthropic employee was making the rounds online. “THE WORLD IS IN PERIL,” the letter proclaimed. He was quitting to save us from the robots! He declared that he was leaving tech behind to dedicate his time to writing poetry. Damn! I thought to myself. AI always takes my ideas!
I spent weeks ruminating over all the bold and outlandish ways I could flip a table when I left, but in the end I just stayed off the internet and milked my health insurance. I got an eye surgery I’ve been needing, which I thought would be a minor operation, but which instead left me nauseous and with a migraine for the next 2 weeks.
Your mom had to leave town for work, and I tried not to feel like a terrible parent for letting you marathon hours of Octonauts next to me while I melted into the couch with Advil and an eye patch. As you gawked at the screen and stuffed your face with grapes, you turned to me and said, “You’re Kwazii.”
L.A. was legit cold throughout most of February…like in the 50s, no joke. It was frigid enough for all the UGGS stomping around to actually seem weather-appropriate, and for tourists who had not checked the weather when packing to be easily spotted as they vigorously rubbed their tank-topped arms. This literal Ice Age, along with my cyclops era, would’ve allowed me to stay inside guilt-free, if it weren’t for your ass. To be a parent is to be part of an unending conversation about the evils of too-much-screentime and not-moving-your-body-enough. “Turn it off!” I’d catch myself randomly shouting like a madman. You and I both desperately had to go outside.
The normal winter heatwave finally returned on the last week of February, as my final few days as a Smithsonian curator counted down. To mark the occasion, I brought you along for a studio visit with Mojdeh Rezaeipour, an artist who I befriended at a Zoom event during the pandemic (a period before you were born, when we also had a good excuse to not leave the house). Mojdeh is a master of splicing the wonderment of childhood with the weight of social upheaval, showing how the two are interconnected. Her current body of work, Classroom Solidarities, features mixed-media recreations of scenes from school protests in Iran, beginning with the Jin Jiyan Azadi uprising of 2022.
At the outbreak of the protests, Mojdeh was house-bound in Maryland from having just given birth, and she stared at her phone while her home country went through yet another convulsion. She began reminiscing on her own experiences as a young student in Iran. She dug up her old schoolwork. How do we know when power has been exerted? a physics assignment asked. What do we mean by resistive force? How many different types of change can you think of?
Thinking about her newborn, and the world they would grow up in, she returned to the studio and has spent the past few years making art nonstop. Like so many artists I know, parenthood made her prolific.
In addition to being absolutely astounded by Mojdeh’s work, I was also excited because it was the first where I’d test my new commitment to being completely unapologetic about bringing you with me to studio visits. “I’ll have a coloring book for him!” Mojdeh texted. We arrived at a warehouse in the Arts District that’s exactly as how it would appear in anyone’s mind. There were potholes, walls covered in every inch with tags, and random giant plushes slumped on dumped furniture. Peak L.A.
“We have stray cats here!” she chirped when she greeted us. Auntie Mojdeh knew exactly the right things to say. I love visits with artist-parents because they always feel a bit like a fever dream. Conversations ricochet between principles of decolonial historiography to strategies for hiding vegetables in pancake batter. There’s something humbling and grounding about trying to hold a serious discussion about the state of youth protest movement, while an actual youth is running circles around you and shouting “WHAT ARE YOU DOING DADDY???” every time you try to say something deep.
I blame it on my eye meds that it took me a whole hour to realize you were restless because I had talked up an art studio visit, only to not present a single art supply. Mojdeh whipped out Prismacolors and graph paper, and you scurried atop an art crate to churn out drawings of helicopters, only taking breaks to play this new game you’ve been psyched about, called “tag.”
Two days later, I awoke for the first time in 13 years no longer employed as a public servant of the government. I opened my phone to discover that the U.S. had begun bombing Iran the night before.
Doomscrolling was even more painful than usual, because of my eye. In a bit of a daze, I drove you to Westwood and sat down at our favorite Persian spot. I pointed a map of Tehran on the wall, and explained that this is where Auntie Mojdeh is from. I thought about all the places I grew up learning about only as war foes. We scraped the plate clean.
Later that evening, I did what I often do during times of crisis – I turned to art. We ended up going to Frieze, which I acknowledge was kind of a weird choice given the circumstances. I lightweight detest art fairs – I prefer spaces where I can search for depth and reflection, but fairs are by nature all about spectacle and commercialism. I find myself wandering around seeking meaning, looking for a diamond in the rough, only to realize that I’m just browsing luxury goods like everyone else.
It’s for this reason I’ve avoided Frieze for years even though it takes place just a few blocks away from home. But now, as a free agent, I figured it was a better time than any to bite the bullet and embrace being “in the market.” Plus, it was different this time: I had you as my wingman.
I didn’t know what I was looking for when I entered the fair, but you did: animals and cars. I followed you as you wove through the crowds on your trike, stopping at works that inspired you to doodle into your notebook. We spent time fixated on pieces that I would’ve completely missed on my own. Immediately upon walking in, you gravitated toward the towering quilts of Yvonne Wells, where we spent a good half-hour.
I discovered the whimsical figures of Solange Pessoa and the charmingly understated sculptures of Hugh Hayden. I know it wasn’t just because of my surgery that I knew I was looking at things with new eyes. Truth be told, it’s the best time I’ve ever had at a fair.
My child, let me tell you a secret: I don’t know how to navigate this world any better than you do. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling like I’m just learning the ropes. In some ways, your curiosity and openness is all that’s saving me from becoming enveloped by doubt. It feels like both the worst time and the only time to leave the semblance of stability I’ve been clinging onto for years. It’s eerily freeing to know that all we have is each other now. Maybe that’s all we need.
