Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, Jerry Gogosian—I’m not famous, but I’m oddly famous—Dies at Age 40
Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, or Jerry Gogosian, was known as the art world’s sharpest critic, a trailblazing media artist whose main medium, her satirical memes, incited both fear and reverence in her readers. We have all learnt a thing or two from her acerbic prose.
Helphenstein, the artist-turned-gallerist-turned meme/performance-artist who found her voice through the satirical persona she created for Instagram in 2018: Jerry Gogosian, an amalgamation between critic Jerry Saltz and mega-gallerist Larry Gagosian, died on Sunday in a Rosewood Hotel room in São Paulo, according to Brazilian media reports. She was 40 years old.
A friend sent me a screenshot of Artnet’s obituary, then another, and another, and another. I spent some time refreshing “Hilde Lynn Helphenstein Obituary NYT,” hoping to see an article worthy of her work and person appear. It didn’t. She traveled to São Paulo to undergo a cosmetic procedure; when someone who said they were her surgeon could not get hold of her, the hotel staff entered her room and found her unconscious. Police is investigating. I think of Joan Rivers, who died after the suites of vocal chord surgery. Or, Cher’s mom in Clueless: “Wasn’t my mom a total Betty? She died when I was young. A freak accident during a routine liposuction.” Rivers’ career lasted more than five decades. Helphenstein’s was cut too short. Both aggressive, funny, and dedicated, with revolutionary and plentiful output.
Following the art world’s migration to Instagram in 2014-2016 and amid the mass-media appeal of the blue-chip art market—and an obsession with making it more transparent—the account @jerrygogosian was a breath of fresh air. It exposed the mechanisms of art world hyper-commodification through satire. The Olsen Twins became stand-ins for the ‘gallery girls’ Zoe and Chloe who glared at the public entering their blue-chip gallery, wished they were more important during art fairs, and mostly tried to appease the ‘Senior Director,’ often Kris Jenner. News, tidbits about sales, pricing, art fairs, who gets into institutions and who doesn’t, and gossip. Think @overheardinnewyork, but about the art world, which isn’t that big so often you could figure out who people she modeled her work on, and certainly which galleries.
In an era of art world professionalization, how-tos, and roadmaps to success, Jerry Gogosian’s witty observations showed that it isn’t that easy, perhaps not worth it, but that she would support you if needed it, and that the art world needs to be more caring of artists’ well-being and lives.
Sometimes Jerry Gogosian was overt; notably, Gagosian director Sam Orlofsky was dismissed after she called him out for bad behaviour. The #metoo era led to an upswing in call-out accounts. Still, the popularity of Jerry Gogosian (150K followers) paved the way for anonymous cancel accounts like @changethemuseum and @cancelartgalleries, publishing anonymized stories of workplace abuse and discrimination within the art world on Instagram.
In 2020, Artnet News columnist Kenny Schachter confirmed Helphenstein’s identity. From then on, Helphenstein expanded her brand and made it more personal. She launched her own podcast, Art Smack. She created The Jerry Report. During the pandemic, she was a frequent speaker and host on the Clubhouse audio app where she dissected and satirized the art world and discussed art market trends with invited guests and users. In 2022, she curated the selling exhibition Suggested Followers: How the Algorithm Is Always Right at Sotheby’s. During Frieze week New York 2023, she co-curated a talk series with Ana Benaroya, Caleb Yono, Sanford Biggers, and Tschabalala Self, among others, and an after-party, Ethereal Femmes, celebrating the trans community, at Boom Boom Room. A frequent attendant at major art fairs and associated hot-ticket dinners. She also worked on content partnerships with TEFAF, among others, pursued an executive MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, signed with a Hollywood talent agency (as a first for the agency and a first for a visual artist), got engaged, and called it off. She collected art, often from her followers. All while in the spotlight and, as she states on her website, “lifting the veil of the art world.”
Last summer, Helphenstein announced plans to move on from Jerry Gogosian, saying that she’d grown out of it. It went dark, and then she came back. A post titled ”My Year of (un)Rest and Relaxation” on her Substack detailed that her summer had been a rough period that she would rather forget. Her content shifted to more travel and aesthetic procedures—and several memes about what procedures she and an L.A.-based plastic surgeon recommend for various male behemoths in the art world. What Jerry Gogosian did, she did for her devoted fans, generously, and with a hint of irony. Something new was brewing. In her most recent Jerry Gogosian post, three days ago, she encouraged fans “to let the rich woman inside of you fly.”
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Too Nice Not To Read, Too Boring Not to Be Anonymous: artnotnet
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