Artist Feature Series: In Conversation with Hilde Lynn Helphenstein/ Jerry Gogosian
May 23, 2023
Atreya Mathur and the Center for Art Law Team
Introduction
In the context of the Center for Art Law’s Artists’ Legacy and Estate Planning Clinic as well as Artist-Dealer Relationships Clinic, the Center sat down with American gallerist and artist Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, a.k.a. Jerry Gogosian, whose instagram account is a satire of the contemporary art world[1], to discuss her work and her recent experiences in connection with the Yayoi Kusama x Louis Vuitton (LV) collaboration.
Yayoi Kusama is one of the best known artists in the world. She is a nano-generian and has been renowned for her mental health issues and her ubiquitous dots. LV is a French-based fashion house and an international corporation known for partnering with artists, including Jeff Koons and Sol LeWitt for mega-commercial projects. In 2023, LV launched its second collaboration with Kusama, dotting storefronts and hundreds of products as well as reproducing Kusama’s likeness as automated manikins in Paris, New York and other storefronts. Many commentators have expressed mixed feelings about the propriety of the Kusama company.
Read the Center’s background work in preparation for the interview HERE.
Center for Art Law is interested in this topic in the contents of protecting artists’ rights, addressing estate planning needs and legacy questions as well as duties of artists and dealers to each other when in a contractual relationship.
Interview with Hilde Lynn Helphenstein/ Jerry Gogosian
Please let us know a little bit about yourself? The alias name you use– the story behind it?
My name is Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, but I’m known online as Jerry Gogosian. I have an Instagram account following of 126K followers who are mostly artists, art dealers, major art institutions, and broadly speaking art enthusiasts. I have been satirizing the art world for about 5 years via memes, but occasionally I use my platform for other things namely: supporting other artists, having conversations about the contemporary art world, watching auctions, discussing the art market and calling out major injustices or exploitation, if I deem it necessary.
What kind of work do you do and what art do you enjoy practicing? How long have you been creating art? (Any links to your art we could see?)
I am a multi-media cross-disciplinary artist. Making art is my full time job in the sense that Jerry Gogosian is very much a full time job. I make memes, have a weekly podcast called Art Smack, write a private [online] newsletter where I write about the art market and major art world occurrences called “The Jerry Report,” and sell merchandise. I also make public appearances, do brand partnerships, and curate highly produced exhibitions of other artists’ work.
You can see the bulk of what I do by visiting www.gogosian.com or going on Instagram.
What brands have you worked with? What kind of collaborations have you done?
I have worked with ON Running, BMW, Ruinart, MATCHESFASHION, The EDITION hotels, Frieze Art Fair, and The Standard. When I partner with brands I do everything from throwing large parties, highlighting their participation in art world events, and using my multiple platforms to advertise for them.
Do you have any inspirations for your work – if so, whom or what inspires you?
I see myself in direct lineage to artists like Barbara Krueger and Jenny Holzer. These two women have used text and imagery to call attention to issues in culture while maintaining a sense of humor which I find important in my work.
About the Kusama x LV collaboration
In 2022, LV rolled out its latest collaboration with Yayoi Kusama. How did you learn about the Kusama x LV Collaboration?
I saw the roll out of the campaign everywhere I looked. It was on social media, every news outlet, and plastered all over every major city. It was hard to not know about it.
Did you have any thoughts on the collaboration and why?
I believe this is an example of corporate exploitation of an artist’s work and legacy for pure financial gain.
What attracted your attention to the Kusama collaboration with LV?
I was concerned by the collaboration as I was aware of Kusama’s age (from editors: Yayoi Kusama, born in 1929 is now 94 years old) who has been in a psychiatric institute (from editors: since 1977), and struggles from various health and mental health issues. My common sense and intuition told me something did not seem right. She was represented by an automaton and a huge replica on top of the Paris store, but to me she seemed diluted in the LV mega-campaign, the actual human artist was nowhere to be found in this collaboration. Yes, her famous dots were on everything including building exteriors, shopping malls, airports, cookies…not to mention an entire line of products which seemed to have nothing but a bunch of dots that anyone could have painted. There were also Look-alike Robots of Kusama installed in store windows painting dots, which began to feel more and more creepy and genuinely in bad taste/inauthentic.
What did you do? What kind of questions were you asking and to whom were you posing these questions?
I spoke about this issue during one of the episodes of podcast: Art Smack. I began to voice my concerns when someone sent me a “recent” photo of a wheelchair bound Yayoi Kusama staring off into the distance looking very frail and as if she had no idea where she was. (from editors: in the Art Smack Episode 9 called “Smashing Pumpkins,” Jerry shared her feelings about her own nanogenerian grandmother (at 1h4m) and thoughts about what she thinks would be a dignified end of life of an artist). It was clear from the image that she was not mentally present. I first posted that picture and began to question the nature of Kusama’s involvement. As I used searching mechanisms that surpass just Google, I scoured the internet to find a quote from her about the 2023 collaboration, just anything to show that she was a part of the collaboration. There was only a statement from her studio (name and place) stating that “the studio was excited to collaborate with LV.” I invited the art world to look into it for me as well by … how? Was I missing something very obvious? Who was profiting from this? How could this elderly woman have consented to this project with mental health struggles while living in a psychiatric ward?
Did you know that Kusama collaborated with LV in the past?
Yes, I am aware that sometime in the earlier she did a beautiful collaboration with Marc Jacobs who was working with LV at the time.
How do you perceive Kusama’s legacy? Her interest in her public persona?
I believe her legacy has been trivialized into polka dots and infinity rooms. She doesn’t have a public persona anymore.
Under the US law, copyright holders and celebrities can license their rights for others to make derivative works. If we assume that Kusama transferred her copyright and other rights to her studio or other third persons, the use of her IP, name and likeness are authorized exploitations for commercial purposes. In this light, why would making any licensed derivative works using Kusama’s intellectual property be controversial?
I believe so long as an artist has consented either verbally or in writing for their work and likeness to be appropriated, it is ethical. If she had explicitly instructed her foundation, gallery, or representatives to make derivative art works in her name, then I see no problem with this. However, we are talking about a frail and sickly woman who’s given no public statement about the project.
Did you reach out to curators, art historians or the studio of the artist?
I reached out to the entire art world via my Instagram account. I was overwhelmed with people who felt the same sentiment. Artists and other members of the art world felt very much the same. Many reposted my posts and asked similar questions online.
What responses did you receive either from LV or others who were concerned about the collaboration? Did you find many others who supported your views/thoughts?
Many fellow artists shared the same concerns I did and believed it was exploitation. Thousands of my followers reposted my words and thoughts on the campaign. I never heard directly back from LVMH regarding any of my questions though I did tag them in several of my posts. This is around the time that trolls started swarming my Instagram page. I was blocking hundreds of people and accounts a day, [new commentators] who I’d never seen following before and who did not follow my instagram. They were calling me terrible names for speaking my mind, calling out what I saw was very troubling.
Why were you troubled by this?
As a woman artist, interested in collaborations between corporations and fashion houses and artists, I am wondering about the power dynamic and the role artists play in fast and high fashion.
What are your thoughts on the collaboration as an attempt to build and preserve the legacy of Kusama?
If you look at Kusama’s older work, she made a lot more than polka dots, but because the polka dots and pumpkins are so easy to reproduce with or without the artist, I believe this was an attempt to defang a once edgy artist by capitalizing on her iconic presence and over simplifying her earlier work, making easily reproducible objects with high price labels and imitations of what a brand could have imagined that maybe she would have made. This feels like uncoupling her work from its original context, debasing it somehow, making it a cheap commodity not art. Sure, she will have a FLASH in the public’s consciousness so long as the campaign goes on, but to me this does not seem like preservation of her legacy. This is monetizing on her achievements and may be corporate appropriation of artist’s work for financial gain.
What are your concerns now about the collaboration and the preservation of her legacy, what questions do you have in mind? Did you get in touch with anyone or an attorney to help answer some of these questions?
I did get in touch with a Swiss art attorney, Dr. Andreas Ritter, to ask him about this matter and he was at a loss. I understand that I have no standing to bring action on behalf of the artist (who is residing in Japan). She must have agents and fiduciaries who have the right to do that on her behalf, to see that she is not being taken advantage of to her detriment. When a brand as big as LVMH engages in a project with an artist’s gallery or estate, members of the public, like me, have no legal rights to act, but we have moral rights to ask questions. I did not know what to do next.
What are your thoughts on protecting artists rights? What platform do you think may work well for advocacy for artists?
It is in my nature to stand up for artists who I see being discriminated against, taken advantage of, or abused. I have done so and I am doing it now for myself because I was very unpleasantly surprised to be attacked for my opinions and comments. If my platform were as big as other influencers or celebrities, like The Kardashians, I think I would have heard something back from LVMH. However, and ironically, because I’m just AN ARTIST voicing my concern to my 126K followers, I do not think a corporation of that size felt they owed me or anyone an explanation.
About the social media bots and comments
You mentioned that you received aggressive backlash while sharing your thoughts about the LV x Kusama collaboration on social media. Which questions or thoughts you posted elicited/invoked the negative backlash?
Those who attacked me came at me from any angle. No matter how I tried to comprehensively address my issues by writing about it, speaking directly to my audience via Instagram live, or posting about it and simply asking questions, I felt like I was pinned against the wall. It was like I wasn’t allowed to be critical about the campaign period, which is strange because I always thought that artists were meant to help the world think critically and question power.
If you’re comfortable sharing, what kind of comments did you receive? Did you know any of these accounts? Do you believe they were bots?
I was told I was jealous of Kusama’s success, a fraud and a fake artist, anti-feminist, ageist, and attention seeking. I was also attacked for the way I speak, being emotional, and for the way I look. Different parts of my identity and persona online were shredded by these anonymous accounts online. I do not know if they were bots programmed to send me hate, but I do believe that a third party was hired or directed to attack me to silence me, because when I stopped writing about this collaboration, messages attacking me ceased.
Did you respond or retaliate to any of the comments in any way?
I blocked and deleted messages. It was a disturbing and very dark time for me. The bullying, it felt like bullying, really seeped into my brain and for a period of time I began to doubt myself and everything I’d done with my life. I thought maybe I was better off dead. I can’t believe it worked, but it does and I’m a tough 37 year old woman. I have weathered many storms in my life, but this was so incredibly hurtful and damaging. I had to block so many people every single day. The comments were out of control and my inbox was full of nasty messages.
When did the nasty comments stop?
When I stopped talking about the LV x Kusama “collaboration.” It stopped almost immediately.
Have you shared more of your thoughts on the collaboration after they stopped? If so, did they begin again?
No. I have decided to back off because it was devastating to my mental health to discuss the topic online.
Have you heard from other artists or in general about the use of trolls to stop artists and others from speaking out?
Yes, I have heard that it is possible to bully and harass people online. Usually, I do not have an issue with trolls on my Instagram account. Occasionally, I’ll have to block or remove a follower for speaking to me inappropriately, but this is 3 or 4 times a month, not hundreds of people a day. When I started writing about the LV x Kusama collaboration, I saw a lot of negative comments. Too many. It does not make sense that there are that many die hard Kusama fans that came after me for asking obvious questions about the nature of this collaboration. This wasn’t an art discourse or debate. This was bullying plain and simple. I pushed the topic very hard for about a week until a family member voiced their concerns for my well-being. I made the decision to walk away from the entire issue until this interview.
People definitely wanted me to shut up about this topic at the time. I was told to literally “shut up” dozens of times a day during this period. Someone and I cannot say who with any certainty wanted to silence me. Currently, as I say nothing about the campaign, no one is telling me to “shut up.” What an odd coincidence!
What would your advice be to someone who may be in a similar situation?
My advice would be that if you are up to the task of standing up against a major corporation, there is a chance that you could end up in a severe online bullying situation which can amount to your mental health deteriorating. Make sure you are surrounded by your loved ones, of sober and sound mind, mentally healthy, considered with what you say, and prepared to take on financial losses if you are an artist that also collaborates with major brands.
What do you think about preserving your own legacy? What kind of aspirations do you have for the posterity of your own work?
I do not care about my own legacy. That is up to art history and the rest of the world in the future. I care about how I live in my life in the present and the values and ethics I uphold.
Read Our Background information for this interview HERE.
For More on this Topic, read:
https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/jerry-gogosian-sothebys-sale-hilde-lynn-helphenstein-interview;
https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/jerry-gogosian-interview ↑
- https://www.shiftlondon.org/news/the-comeback-of-yayoi-kusama-x-louis-vuitton/
Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not meant to provide legal advice. Readers should not construe or rely on any comment or statement in this article as legal advice. For legal advice, readers should seek a consultation with an attorney.
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