Help! I Hate… My Friend

Every week, The Art Journal's resident artworld Agony Aunt Charlotte Jansen answers your questions about access, gatekeeping and sticky social problems

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I’m starting to resent a very close friend. We’re both artists in the same scene and started out at the same time. Together we went through the scrappy group shows, open calls, scrabbling for awards and commissions – all of it. 

We have always been supportive of each other and shared ideas. But over the past few months something has changed. We recently had a huge row over my participation in a group show at an established gallery – this friend had previously fallen out with them. But I think it’s deeper than that – they’re not happy about the attention I’ve been receiving in general recently for my work. I value our friendship, but I feel like they don’t want me to succeed – at least, not more than them. What should I do?

Damn, this one isn’t easy. Finding out that someone you thought understood you and supported your ambitions and your career may have been privately, quietly competing with you can be gutting. I wish I could forget the time a former colleague, who I also thought was a good friend, threw me under the bus very publicly during a critical editorial meeting with higher-ups where we had to each pitch ourselves and our role (yes, very Alan Sugar). I was so blindsided by the viciousness of the shade that I couldn’t even react in the moment. I just stumbled on through my pitch. But that occurrence revealed a lot to me about that person, and unfortunately, in this highly competitive creative industry – and with so many big, volatile personalities to boot – it happens, and I almost can’t blame them. We were also all so green and full of fear, and ambition can burn out of control at that age. I think the situation maybe brought something animal out of her. But, yeah, we’re not friends anymore…

Friendships formed in the early stages of a creative career are uniquely intense. They’re built on affection and shared passion, but also shared hunger and ambition. You go through the rejections, the doubts, the failed projects and the small triumphs together. There’s so much tenderness and vulnerability in witnessing a person experience that. But there’s also, of course, the risk that, when two people are so intertwined personally and professionally, success can change things.

The argument this person had with the gallery sounds, to me, less like the true issue and more like the point at which something unspoken has finally surfaced. You accepted an opportunity that your friend felt morally or personally opposed to, and when you took that opportunity they saw it as a betrayal. But really it was about the harder truth: your recent success has tipped the balance between you and your friend may not know how to bear the feelings that brings up. It’s not easy to sit with feelings of envy and jealousy towards someone you consider a friend. This person may very much want you to succeed and enjoy that success, but they can’t help comparing themselves to you either. It’s a tough place to be. I feel a lot of empathy for them.

Envy, so they say, is one of the least flattering and most human emotions there is. There’s a lot of shame and stigma around feeling it or expressing it. Most people can tolerate a friend succeeding in theory; it becomes far harder when the success arrives so close to home, in your own field, attached to someone whose trajectory mirrors your own – and perhaps at a moment where you feel stuck, or when things aren’t going well for you. Another artist’s breakthrough can feel uncomfortably like evidence about your own position, or lack of grip on the slippery footholds. 

The thing is, a good friendship can survive jealousy if there’s honesty and self-awareness involved. If your friend calms down and is able to come and out and celebrate you, take you aside and recognise where their negative feelings were coming from, then you may be able to flourish as friends and peers. But if one bad feeling is left alone it can curdle into another, and the relationship can become a battle of scorekeeping. You may begin to feel your success is only welcome so long as it does not outpace theirs. You cannot control whether your friend feels threatened – you can only decide whether the friendship still has enough goodwill to sustain a proper, frank conversation. Leave room for them to tell the truth, even if it is uncomfortable. 

I am actually impressed that so many artists I know are friends with other artists, even when they work in the same medium. I have plenty of writer friends, but I’ll admit, there are a few that I keep at a cautious distance because I’m never quite sure of their intentions. The best friendships in this industry are those that are generous enough to share feelings of lowness or vulnerability or threat. Ideally, this happens before situations erupt into a full-blown meltdown. 

I would say, prepare yourself: there’s a chance that the friendship has changed in a more permanent way. Not every relationship survives divergence in success, status or recognition. Some people can accompany us through the struggling years, but not through transformation. That is sad, but it is not a failure on your part. No friendship is proved through parity. At the same time, resist the temptation to cast yourself as entirely innocent and your friend as merely bitter. Creative rivalry is rarely so clean.

Ask yourself honestly whether you have become more absorbed in your own momentum lately, or less attentive to their disappointments. Success can isolate people without them noticing. Humility and kindness still matter more than anything.