The Wick Culture - Portrait of Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, by Phi Vu

Monday Muse

Interview Artist & Digital Storyteller Hilde Lynn Helphenstein AKA Jerry Gogosian

Interview

Hilde Lynn Helphenstein

Photography

Phi Vu

02 December 2024

Interview

Hilde Lynn Helphenstein

Photography

Phi Vu

02 December 2024

She’s capable of making you belly laugh as much as making you stop and think – Hilde Lynn Helphenstein is the genius mind behind the conceptual art project Jerry Gogosian, the painfully accurate satire of the art world, that started out as an Instagram platform while Helphenstein was recuperating from illness. The former art dealer has since expanded the project into a newsletter and podcast, both highly revered for their in-depth and insightful commentary and analysis of the contemporary art industry. As Helphenstein might quip – Jerry Gogosian is your best friend in the Art World! We caught up with the art world’s wittiest mind to hear about how she’s carved a unique voice, where her go-to spots are in London, – and why she loves hot pink athleisure wear.

THE WICK: What inspired you to create Jerry Gogosian, and how has the art world reacted to your platform?

Hilde Lynn Helphenstein: In 2018 my career came to a halt as an art dealer when I got very sick. At the time I was bed bound and thought that perhaps my career was over. I started making jokes using different memes to talk about my observations in the art world. I think I’d come into working in the art world with a lot of idealism that was quickly shattered when I realized that it was a business, and a cut throat one at that.

I was really surprised how many people resonated with my feelings and the account went viral. Everyone from mega dealers to aspiring artists were commenting “me” and reposting the jokes. I had never felt more connected to the art community than I did when I started @jerrygogosian and it has been better than anything I could have ever forecasted or dreamed. It makes me a bit emotional to think about an art project saving my life. I think I healed a lot through this project.

TW: In a brave new art world, how are content creators and business owners helping to sculpt critical art opinion and voice?

HLH: I now understand that it is hard to run a revenue generating art business. Almost no one can do it. Therefore, I don’t think business owners should be focused on anything besides making money for themselves and their artists. There are too many art dealers that make the experience of facilitating artists about themselves. Their job should be supporting artists, staying open, and paying their bills on time. It is the job of the artist to sculpt a voice that resonates with an audience and to add to the ever unfolding human consciousness. Anyone can be a content creator now which reminds me that sometimes we are as powerful in what we say as we are with what we don’t say.

TW: Which project or moment are you most excited about in the year ahead?

HLH: Right now I am in the process of cutting a lot of projects and that is just as exciting as taking on new projects. Over the last few years, I may have said yes to too many projects and it has uncentered me. I realized only recently that it was destabilizing to take on the work of 6 other people. I am not in a competition with myself or anyone and there’s no point in doing any of this if I’m unable to be present for my work. Sometimes I fantasize about taking on a quiet, non-art related job…but I highly doubt art will ever let me go.

TW: What is the book you would pass on as a gift to a loved one and why?

HLH: I just lent my friend a copy of The Creative Act by Rick Rubin. He’s a great supplement to my spiritual and artist friends like Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ram Dass, and Rumi. It is amazing to have read so many great books over time and to realize that there is a red thread through all of this. The spiritual world and the creative world are almost completely indivisible.

“I am an artist and an entrepreneur who likes noticing the unfolding of art as much as I love the characters I find in art.”

TW: What are the words you use to live by?

HLH: It used to be “Nothing is available” but now I think it would be “Everything is available.” I feel unconstrained at the moment.

TW: What’s your favourite Culturally Curious spot when visiting London?

HLH: I have had the tremendous pleasure of spending a good amount of personal time in Chapter House at Westminster Abbey. This last year I was working on a project with English Heritage and I felt very honored to stand alone in the room where the Benedictine monks had their morning prayers for several hundred years and where every monarch received their rites to rule through anointment. I also spent a lot of time in The Jewel Tower. Both of these locations are open to the public if someone reading this is curious.

TW: Who are some up-and-coming artists to watch, and how do you discover them?

HLH: I am not really paying attention to that right now. The cycle and churn of “hot artists” is unending and competitive. After 12 years, it has become uninspiring and tedious to try to keep up with who’s the who’s who of art. I have gone backwards in the last few months. I have spent a lot of time with the life story of Caravaggio and I have been studying the Renaissance. The thing that stands out to me is how they KNEW they were living in a renaissance and believed that some of the world’s greatest minds were alive and geographically close. I am also inspired by Renaissance thinkers to take a crack at reading the classics of Greek and Latin literature, though not in Greek or Latin.

TW: You were one of the first independent art world channels. How do you find yourself merging your digital presence with your real-life persona? Are they the same?

HLH: @jerrygogosian is a conceptual art project. Some people confuse me for the character of Jerry Gogosian, but I try to explain to people that Jerry Gogosian, Zoe & Chloe, and The Senior Director are characters that I’ve created much like an author of a fiction would.

I am an artist and an entrepreneur who likes noticing the unfolding of art as much as I love the characters I find in art. I generally like people and I believe that being a great satirist means that you must love your subject in order to poke fun at it. Several people who’ve met me since starting @jerrygogosian have remarked that I am “much nicer” than they thought which kind of bugs me because I have always thought of myself as loving and playful amongst my peers and friends.

TW: What is your top fashion brand to wear to a private view in LA?

HLH: I don’t live in LA anymore, but when I did I was not exempt from LA cliches. Most people in LA are on their way or just coming back from working out at all times. You’re most likely to see me in workout clothes most days of the week. When I moved to the East Coast, my friends gave me hell for wearing too much hot pink athleisure in public. Three years later I still refuse to wear grey or black, so I really stick out here.

TW: You can have a three-hour dinner with any 3 people in history (alive or dead). Who would you choose and why?

HLH: A three hour dinner?! I only like to subject art collectors to that kind of pain.

I would really like to spend time with my ancestors. My great-great grandmother Dagmar Adamsen. Dagmar came from Norway to the USA. She had several children including a set of twins she gave birth alone while she was looking after the farm. The story goes that she wrapped them up, nursed them, and then went out to milk the cows in the dead of winter. She was very pragmatic and strong. I have seen her photograph before and she looked undeterred by life. There was never a day of her life that she didn’t work to maintain the life of my family and I wouldn’t be here today without her.

Likewise, I would be honored to meet a woman of the House of Helfenstein (Ellis Island changed the spelling of our family’s name,) Barbara Helfenstein. I had a couple interesting encounters with Barbara’s spirit when I was on psychedelics and I’d like to meet her to confirm my impressions of her. When I “met” her I became very aware of a spicy, wild feminine spirit who was very playful and unapologetic. At the time of my encounter the name “Barbara” kept coming to me and it wasn’t until my father sent me the wiki information on my family that I discovered Barbara’s name in my family lineage. She lived in Germany during the Middle Ages and came from a noble family. That is all I really know. I like to imagine that she lives on in a different energetic plain and that she looks after me here.