The social media satirist and artist Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, widely known in the art world by the moniker Jerry Gogosian, has died, aged 40. Helphenstein was found dead at the Rosewood hotel in São Paulo, Brazil, 31 May, according to local media reports.
A spokesperson for Rosewood São Paulo confirmed in a statement to Hyperallergic that Helphenstein was found deceased in one of its rooms on Sunday afternoon (the hotel was contacted for further comment).
The Jerry Gogosian account on Instagram—a platform for Helphenstein’s opinions on matters such as blue-chip dealers and art fair management—became an art world must-read, garnering more than 151,000 followers. In her last Instagram post, dated 30 May, she says that “sometimes you need to let the rich woman inside you fly.”
Helphenstein previously ran a Los Angeles art gallery, which opened in 2016. But after being bedridden with health problems for a year, she launched the Jerry Gogosian account in 2018, playing on the names of critic Jerry Saltz and mega dealer Larry Gagosian. “I contracted a disease that had me in bed for a year. I wasn’t even thinking about followers; I just thought it was inside-track jokes. Then, it went from 100 people—which is about what I thought I’d get—to 18,000 in four months,” she told W magazine in 2022.
The Instagram account was a springboard for other projects, including a Sotheby’s sale of emerging artists in 2022 entitled Suggested Followers: How the Algorithm is Always Right.
Asked how the Sotheby’s project came about, Helphenstein told W: “Because I’m followed by pretty much every gallery, major institution, big collector etc., when I go to my ‘suggested’ or Explore pages, Instagram shows me people who are going to be rising stars. So for the past four years, I’ve saved artists to an Instagram folder that’s literally called ‘Paintings I Like’.”
In February last year, Helphenstein announced that she had signed with the Beverly Hills talent company United Talent Agency. At the time, UTA Fine Arts’ then senior director Harrison Tenzer said: “Her commitment to supporting fellow artists is evident throughout her work as is her dedication to making the notoriously opaque art world feel welcoming to more people.” UTA was contacted for comment.
Helphenstein also published The Jerry Report newsletter on Substack, where essays covered topics such as “Donald Judd bores me”, and hosted the podcast Art Smack which launched late 2022. Last year, however, she announced that she was giving up social media.
“I have so loved and enjoyed being Jerry, but it is time to let it go,” said Helphenstein. In June, she subsequently told The Art Newspaper that she wanted “to write a White Lotus or Succession of the art world”, adding: “Besides my creative endeavours, I want to work for MCH Group [Art Basel parent company] and eventually for Art Basel.”
