Bad at Sports Episode 949: Hilde Lynn Helphenstein

I don't quite know how to start this. It feels important to repost this interview because of Hilde. Hilde Lynn Helpenstein was a kickass human. "Jerry Gogosian" was a lance aimed directly at our pretensions and self-importance. Through Jerry, Hilde developed an incisive understanding of how the art world works. She created a space where many of us felt seen, derided, embarrassed, challenged, or simply able to laugh at our own reflection. She used Jerry to investigate us, for better and worse. In doing so, she exposed the paradoxes, half-truths, and hypocrisies embedded in what we do and how we choose to spend our lives. I think we should have listened more carefully when she tried to take what she had learned and suggest other ways forward. Hilde fucking loved art. More than almost anything. I know that feeling. She knew something wasn't working and she was trying to understand it, diagnose it, and imagine alternatives. What changed for me in this interview was realizing that we were on the same trip. My friend Chris Johanson used to say, "Trip on it, don't fry on it." It's hard not to fry on the thing you love most, especially when you feel responsible for all of it. Hilde was generous and generative. Sadly, the art world can't love you back. It's a little like summer camp: a temporary bubble of perfection that can be difficult to bring back into everyday life. What Hilde wanted, I think, was for us to find a way to reconnect art to the world outside that bubble, and maybe get over ourselves in the process. I, and all of us at Bad at Sports, will miss our fellow traveler. d.