Beyond the art world’s professional channels are the unsung networks that help artists do what they do: the friends they turn to off the record to chew over ideas and tell them how it really is. The need for peer-to-peer support is something that the leading American artist Rashid Johnson understands well. This summer at Château La Coste in Provence, he is staging both a solo exhibition and the group show ‘Rashid, Sheree and Friends’, which he is co-curating with the artist Sheree Hovsepian, his partner in a number of projects that provide a platform for other artists’ work, and formerly in life. Meanwhile, the pair are initiating a new residency program for artists and writers in Menorca.

‘As an artist, I depend on a number of folks to lend me a critical eye. When we’re asking for honest feedback, what we’re really asking for is someone to get into our brains. We’re not asking them to make decisions based on what they would prefer, nor are we asking to hear their enthusiasm for compositional or conceptual concerns. You’re asking them to know you well enough to help you be the best version of yourself.

‘Sometimes that pushes you to recognize that you’re making something that you do believe in, and that you’re ready to defend. Or to realize that it isn’t as significant as you imagined, and that you don’t have the willingness to validate putting it into the world. But even when feedback isn’t right for you, it doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. It helps you steel yourself, or makes you realize how committed you are to the work.

‘A lot of that happens on the phone. My friends are all over the place and everybody’s busy. We send each other images [of work in progress], or somebody will stop by the studio, or I’ll pop by theirs, and we’ll just say, ‘Hey, what’s been going on?’ A lot of times, because we’re so familiar with each other’s projects, an image will do. When you have these long relationships, you’ve seen each other’s projects grow over time, so you know what someone’s hand does, you understand their gesture. When you see a single work by someone you know, you’re seeing far more than the labor of that actual work. You’re thinking about what they made 5 or 30 years ago. You’ve been a thought partner to these people, and that makes it even more beautiful and challenging.

‘Often, when we think of artists, we think of these autonomous souls working in spaces by themselves. But the reality is that you’re oftentimes looking at people who are the fruits of the relationships they have.

‘I’ve been such a fan and supporter of Sheree’s work at different stages, and she has been the same for me. Watching us grow as artists, seeing where we cross over and where we don’t, where our projects make sense together and where they don’t – I always have her voice in my head to some degree when I’m making something. We’re going through a transition in our relationship, and our relationship is evolving. That made us think a lot about friendship, about community, how it changes and functions, and about our levels of dependence on it. The show that we’re curating together at Château La Coste was really born out of the reality of that.

‘That also shaped what I wanted to contribute to Château. Having visited a few times, I always find it rewarding to return to the permanent works – to experience the Louise Bourgeois, or the Andy Goldsworthy again. You build relationships with those pieces over time. What I wanted to add was another platform for exchange: a place to sit and talk, eat, play games, be with others, or be by yourself. Discourse and exchange are as valuable in art as the object is.

‘There are so many people in the exhibition who I know and love. Many of them Sheree and I have real relationships with – people we’ve dined with, people we’ve cried with, people who have been supportive at different stages of our careers, people who were with us when the audience for our projects was far smaller.

‘Kris Andrews is a longtime friend of mine and Sheree’s. He hasn’t exhibited much at all; he’s been working quietly for the last 25 years, so for many people this will be an introduction to his work. His practice deals with identity, whiteness, and the circumstances of an evolving sense of self. I’m excited to see it live in space alongside artists he has known for years, but never exhibited with.

‘At times it can be challenging to be an artist. That’s not only because the topics that concern us are serious, personal, poetic, and political, but because they’re engaged with a society going through significant transitions. On top of that, it can be quite competitive. People are trying to create opportunities to amplify their voices, hoping for, and often fighting for, resources. But, once in a while, if you can take off the shackles of those limitations and say, ‘Hey, this is an invitation, let’s take something from our projects and put it together without anything more thematic than the fact that we have a relationship,’ it’s just beautiful. There’s a certain release in it.’