Jan Verwoert

Standing on theGates of Hell,My Services AreFound Wanting

Standing on the gates of hell, my services arefound wanting. For I cannot give you what youwant. What you want from me, here, on the gatesof hell, is to open the gates and let you in. But Icannot do that. I don’t even see why that serviceshould still be required. Because you havealready passed the gates. You are inside. You livein contemporary hell. You inhabit the hell of thecontemporary. And now you want me to performthe rite to confirm your passage? And give youreasons for being in there? I’m sorry, I can’t. Togrant you a license to be where you are does notlie within my powers. Thus powerless I remain,standing on the gates of hell, observing whatpasses and sharing my observations with you.đđđđđđđđđđPassing the gates of hell, you get everythingyou ever wanted. And everything you wanted isall you are ever going to get. Nothing more. Justthat. Exactly what you wanted. Everythingincluded. In hell. In a world to reflect yourdesires, a world coated in surfaces that fracturethe light and make its reflections play across theskin of all things new in the modern world, thecontemporary world: in a world that stayscontemporary by rejuvenating itself in cycles ofmodernization, with each cycle eclipsing theprevious one in accordance with the laws ofplanned obsolescence. To love this world youmust forget all the new you got before, beforeyou now became, again, the new you. Themodern world has a lot to offer the new you; eachcake it serves you is one to have and eat, so thatalways things can be had both ways: a trip to themoon and a journey through the unconscious, aholiday on foreign shores and a return home to acountry you never knew, an innocence sweeterthan raffinated sugar and a force brute enough tohelp you “claw yourself into an untouchableplace.”1 All resources that the planet and itspeople provide – all the oil, spices, and metals,the power, sex, and money in the world – are atyour disposal to fulfill the promise oftranscending material needs through materialmeans that modern culture, rendering itselfcontemporary over and over again, incessantlyrenews. đđđđđđđđđđRemaining on the gates of hell, I willpromise you none of this. I can only tell you thereis more. No more of this. But much more than youhave ever wanted before, or thought youdeserved. For this too is modernism, of another,an always uncontemporary kind, a nagging doubtand a mocking voice, speaking softly, close toyour ear: “What if there was something more tolife? Than this? Something altogether different,something both/neither old and/nor new,something that was there for you, if only you hadthe guts to face it...” This is not my voicespeaking. But another voice. I only relate what itsays. Since I keep hearing it from where I stand,

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Bruce Nauman, Failing to Levitate, 1966.

here, on the gates of hell.

No. 1. Uncontemporaries at the GatesStanding on the gates of hell, I hear other voices.For I find myself in the company of others. In thecompany of my contemporaries. What makesthem my contemporaries is theiruncontemporary manners, their mannered waysof causing a disturbance at the gates, theirinsistence to not readily pass through the gatesto enter the contemporary, without reservations.What brings us together, then, asuncontemporary contemporaries – or rather,contemporary uncontemporaries – is not a set ofshared beliefs, not a joint endeavor, not a projector enterprise, but just this very intuition: thatthere is no reason to readily enter, but that itmight be more wise to stay on the gates and takea good look.đđđđđđđđđđStanding there, I find myself, for instance, inthe company of Irit Rogoff, and I am with herwhen she writes that what makes uscontemporaries is the act of looking at theproblems of our time together and the realizationthat we share these problems – and maybe notmuch more apart from these problems – as weinhabit the condition of contemporaneitytogether. I agree with her in principle. I would

contend, however, that facing today’s problemstogether as contemporaries, does notnecessarily mean to “fully inhabitđand live outcontemporaneity.”2 I would rather say that thevery act of facing the contemporary, ascontemporaries, dissociates us from it – if onlyever so slightly – just enough to get the space totake a look and take the time to have a word witheach other. This dissociation is not an act ofclaiming distance, for there is no distance. Howcould there be any distance to the contemporary,when, as contemporaries, we live today, we areinvolved, we are entangled! Still, there is adifference in attitude. We do not enter thecontemporary readily. We look at it, think aboutit, and talk about it. We make art about it. Wegenerate philosophy, that is, to invoke the ghostof Nietzsche, a contemporary art of makingunzeitgemäße Betrachtungen – uncontemporaryobservations. And we do many other things thatdemand neither education nor training, thingsdone by all people who hesitate to readily enter(but never hesitate to respond to a distress callfrom anyone inside) contemporary hell.đđđđđđđđđđStanding on the gates of hell, it is not out ofhesitation that we do not readily cross them.Please, don’t assume that we are too fickle tomake a leap of faith and enter! For this passing

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William Blake, Illustrations toMilton’s “Paradise Lost,” TheThomas Set, object 7 (Butlin529.7) “The Rout of the RebelAngels.”

requires no leap. The passage through the gates,on the contrary, is a slow process. It is a matterof formalities and technicalities. It is a matter offinding investors, getting permits, and consultingspecialists. This is how you enter hell in acontemporary fashion. Nowadays, it takes time,determination, and patience to go to hell. Inthese matters we can neither consult norconsole you. The formalities and technicalities ofthe gradual passage to hell are not our field ofexpertise. We don’t pass; we leap. With leaps ofthought, we jump from one point of view to theother in order to get a good look at the gates fromdifferent perspectives. If you want to picture thegathering of uncontemporary contemporaries onthe gates, imagine a swarm of frogs, hopping andbopping around on its threshold. Leaps ofthought are leaps of faith, almost by definition.For they presuppose and enact faith in the valueof thinking, the value of a particular form ofthinking: one that has no immediately realizableuse value, that does not readily yield tangibleresults, that does not generate capital, the kindthat you find in philosophy, art, and all forms ofcare. That value is not recognized inside thegates. So anyone who treasures the freedom ofleaping like a frog, in terms of thought and faith,might be advised to stay hopping and bopping

around on the gates.

No. 2. Facing the GatesStanding on the gates I say, carefully avoiding theword "outside." Because there is no outside. Thewhole world is contemporary. It continuouslymakes itself contemporary in waves upon wavesof forceful modernization, of enforcedmodernization. But there is a limit tomodernization, a liminal space to which towithdraw and address the contemporary worldthat modernization creates. This is the liminalspace of artistic intellectual modernisms. Itopens up on the limits of the contemporaryworld. Although it is not entirely outside, it isneither entirely inside the hell of thecontemporary. It is un-contemporary in that italways borders on the contemporary, withoutever becoming one with it. It is on the border. It ison the gates. Quite literally so. Look at Rodin’sgates. It is on the gates that the picture of life inhell materializes. Hell may itself be full ofpictures. But the picture of hell as a whole canonly be found on the doors. It is this picture thatartistic intellectual modernisms have produced,time and again, on the face of the gates. Thestuff of the face of the gates of hell is thematerial world that the contemporary

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Auguste Rodin, The Gates of Hell.

uncontemporaries of modernity, artists andintellectuals, inhabit and emerge from.đđđđđđđđđđFacing the gates of hell, I am amazed by thefact that there are still people here on the gates,and that somehow there always have been. For itmust not be taken for granted that there shouldbe any artists and intellectuals – or anyone elsewho cared, anyone with a heart and a mind – onthe face of the gates, facing the gates. Neither isit a given that there is space on the gates. Suchlives and spaces must first of all be createdthrough a shared decision and a shared desire todescribe, discuss, and remember the hell of thecontemporary. It is through this shared decisionand desire that the space of artistic intellectualdiscussion and remembrance opens up. To openup this space is to take a stance. It is to insistthat what happens in hell should be exposed toview on the gates. It should not remain hiddenbehind closed doors. To insist that things shouldnot remain hidden behind closed doors is to takea stance against the customs that govern lifeinside the gates of hell, the customs of claimingthat nothing ever happened, when something didhappen, so that business can quickly becontinued, as usual. In defiance of thesecustoms, artists and intellectuals insist that thememory, history, experience, and ramifications of

life in hell are to be exposed to the public on theface of the doors. The liminal space on the gatesof hell, the liminal space of artistic intellectualmodernisms and all social forms of care,therefore, is a public space. The insistence oncreating space on the gates is the insistence onthere having to be a critical public.

No. 3. Weeping and LaughingFacing the gates of hell, I now take a look around.I ask myself: Where am I? What place is this? Thisis not Paris. This is not America. Although itcould be. This is another place. A particularplace. Always another place. And always aparticular place. This is because, throughout thelast two centuries, various gates of hell havebeen built in particular places all around theworld. And more gates are currently underconstruction. All these gates are portals to othergates. For all the gates of hell in the world areconnected. They are connected throughelectrical wires, pipelines, and invisible flows ofmoney. But they are also connected throughshared ideas and shared feelings of joy and pain.Sometimes the laughter and weeping of peopleon one gate can be heard on all other gates too,as if the ones who laugh or weep were just on theother side. Upon hearing the sound, some people

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Martin Schongauer, TheTemptation of St. Anthony, 1470.

on the other gates won’t be able to help laughingor weeping as well.đđđđđđđđđđWeeping and laughing on the gates of hell, Isense the passage that connects all gates to be apassage in space and time. It is the passage ofmodernity. It is one global modernity that linksall of the gates. Still, each gate is different. Eachgate is a pathway to a different modernity, one ofmany local modernities, one of many pathwaysto hell. What is shared from gate to gate throughthe weeping is the memory of all the disasters ofmodernity, each different, immeasurable, andbeyond comparison, but all modern, allatrociously modern, following the cruel logic ofthe modern industrialized production of deathand injustice. What is also shared through thelaughter from gate to gate is the knowledge thatthe many promises of a better modern world tocome were never met, and now seem more likejokes – absurd jokes, serious jokes, jokes thatcontinue to contain a grain of truth. So as weweep today, it is not the end of modernity that webemoan. Neither do we laugh about itdismissively. This is because the passing ofmodernity has not concluded. The industrializedproduction of disaster continues. And promisesare still being made.đđđđđđđđđđWeeping and laughing on the gates of hell, I

do not feel particularly postmodernist.Postmodernism was neither particularly funnynor sad. We uncontemporary contemporaries,however, are particularly funny and sad. Becausewe have experienced the fact that history neverended. We have seen the unresolved tensions ofmodernity erupt in local conflicts, plungingmodern countries around the globe back intohell. This is not over. It never was, and it doesn’tlook like it will end anytime soon. Articulating ourcontemporary experience, we cannot thereforebe anything other than uncontemporary. In ourweeping we bemoan the disasters of the pastthat shape the present in order to try, maybe invain, to prevent people in the future fromrepeating them. In our laughter we mock thepromises of the past that have become jokes, tobe entertained in the present and remindourselves that, as long as there are still jokes tobe made and people to make them, the futurecannot possibly be as grim as it sometimesappears. This uncontemporary weeping andlaughing, resonating between gates across thespace and time of an unfinished modernity, is theweeping and laughter of contemporary art andthought.đđđđđđđđđđWeeping and laughing on the gates of hell,listening and responding to the weeping and

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Gustav Doré, etching for Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

laughter of others, I am surprised to find that Iquite often understand why they may weep orlaugh. But then, often enough, I sadly do not.This is not because I lack information. It is ratherbecause I sometimes simply cannot fathom whatmeaning means for people on another gate.Being raised on the gates of northernProtestantism, I was led to believe that to makemeaning is to make things clear. This is whatmeaning means and this is how it is made.Everything is to be made clear. Because it can bemade clear. This is quite a promise. Not that Iwould ever want to fully renounce it. It haspotential. But by now it also makes me laugh. Alot. And weep quite a bit, too. Because actingunder the assumption that this is what meaningmeans and that this is how it is made, I haveseverely misunderstood people on other gates. Inthe meantime, however, I may have learned oneor two things by experiencing art and thinking onother gates. It seems that this is what sharingour experiences on the gates could be about: tograsp, through art and thinking, what meaningmeans and how meaning is made, on each gateand between them.đđđđđđđđđđSharing experiences on the gates of hell, wedo then find ourselves performing some kind ofservice. We translate what meanings mean and

how we experience experience into art andthought. This act of translation is also an act ofhistorical codification. In art and thinking we findthe historical codes for understanding whatmeaning will have meant and how experience willhave been experienced. These codes are a key forunderstanding the joy and pain of life on thegates of hell now, in the past, and for the future.Similarly, these codes offer access to the logic ofneurosis that governs life in hell. The logic ofneurosis is always contemporary in that itgoverns our encounters today. It is also alwaysuncontemporary in that the logic of neurosisdoubles as the history of joy and pain, laughterand weeping, as it is inscribed in art andthinking. The service that we artists andintellectuals then find ourselves performing onthe gates of hell is similar to that of a storytellertelling ghost stories to children. We tell ghoststories to avow the pain and joy of those whocannot find rest, because inside hell their painand joy is not avowed. We tell the stories of theghosts of the past to keep those ghosts alive inthe present and give them a future in the memoryof our children. We are not afraid of ghosts. Theonly thing we fear is for there to no longer be anyghosts. For if there are no ghosts, then there isno past and no future, and life on the gates of

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hell would cease to be possible. Without ghoststhere would only be hell. So our service consistsof the act of praying for ghosts. As we pray, weinvent new incantations and learn historical onesfrom different gates. Standing on the gates ofhell, we invoke each other’s ghosts and teacheach other prayers.

No. 4. SoulStanding on the gates of hell, having stood herefor a while now, I am forced to admit, once more,that no matter how hard I have tried – and Godknows I have tried – my services are still foundwanting. Not only can I not give you what youwant, neither can I (nor will I) give you what youthink you deserve. For getting what you think youdeserve is just hell. Everybody in the end alwaysgets what they think they deserve. And mostpeople have already gotten it. But they don’t liketo be reminded that they have. This is why hell ishell: People are afraid. The two biggest fears are:1. To get something that one thought one didn’tdeserve. 2. To then be forced to admit that onealready had what one thought one deserved, andthat it was bad. So if you want to charm thepeople in hell and give them what they want, theservice you must provide is to relieve those fears.This is done through a simple trick. It is the

secret of the trade of true liars: always only givepeople what they already have and think theydeserve. But give it to them in a guise that allowsthem to rejoice in the illusion that they receivedsomething new, foreign, and exciting. This wayyou don’t scare people by offering more than theythink they deserve. And you spare them the truththat they already had it all, and that it was bad,since you make the same old seem fresh, right,and justified. If you can perform this trick, youwill be loved. For being the fake you are. But youwon’t go to hell for that. Even if you think youdeserve it and want it badly. Because hell won’ttake you when the devil finds you out. You’ll bekicked right out of hell. And end up out here onthe gates with us. Bad luck, buddy. Bad luck. Sosee you around, later.đđđđđđđđđđStanding on the gates of hell, our services,therefore, are found wanting. For we insist ongiving more than anyone thinks they deserve.Don’t ask me what “more” means. I don’t know.This is the point. This is why we linger and leaparound on the gates: To talk about what moremeans, to talk more, think more, and make moreart. For only one thing is certain out on the gates:life in hell won’t do. There must be more to lifethan this. A passage to unknown pleasures and adifferent state of mind. Or just one less lie. One

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Cathy Wilkes, I give you all my money, 2007. Installation view.

lie less. Maybe it is that simple: As long as thereare still people on the gates invested in the ideathat there could be more, and therefore talking,thinking, creating more, there will be more. Whatfor? And for whom? The question is justified. Andin line with the faith in there being more than theobvious, it is simply not good enough for theanswer to be that it’s all just for us, who happento be invested in this idea. There must be more tothis than just that. An uncontemporary proposalthat modernist contemporaries have time andagain made to gesture towards an answer andoffer an alternative to hell on its gates was – notheaven – but the soul, the spirit of a world, or aghost from a world that transcends the narrowhorizon of the contemporary. I concede that thismay just be another word for the divine, andtherefore just an open gesture towards all that ismore than just the given. But I like it for beingthat. As long as we still, or again, have opengestures to initiate a conversation, an exchangeabout what more we want, how to find more thanwhat hell has to offer, we will continue talking,thinking, creating, and caring, here on the gatesof hell. So my question to you is: What is thesoul? What more can the soul be, thecontemporary soul, the soul of thecontemporary? How can we do things with a bit

of soul? And create contemporary forms ofthinking, making art and living together that havesome soul? Because that would be much betterthan anything hell has to offer: thoughts anddeeds with some soul. Franco Bifo Berardi writesthat soul is the peculiar gravity that makesbodies “fall in with others.” So let’s leap and hop,eager and happy to see the many ways in whichwe drop in with others…3

No. 5. HappinessSaying all this while standing on the gates of hellmay make you think that I am a romantic. But Iam not. Romance belongs to life in hell. Romanceis exactly what people think they deserve.Nothing more than romance. Life in hell is fullyromanticized. Each and every law that governslife in hell is put in place and held in place byromantic pictures and stories. Facing life in hell,standing on the gates, we see it all to clearly. Lifein hell is unromanticizable. Because it is alreadyfully romanticized. The last truly romantic act toperform is to acknowledge that life in hell hasbecome impossible to romanticize, and to moveon. To something more than just romance. To thelove of the body, the love of the soul, and the loveof its many ghosts. This is the ethics of anuncompromising dedication to the peculiar

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material being of others, encountered on thegates. A full dedication to their, your, ourhappiness. A happiness of the mind, the body,and the soul – and its ghosts. This is hedonismas radical ethics and philosophy proper. As aphilosophy and art that becomes the soundingbody for the laughter and weeping of many. Aphilosophy that creates laughter because it is ajoke and consoles the weeping because it is aphilosophy of tears, a philosophy in tears. This isan art and philosophy that is deeply romanticonly in one respect: that it wants more thanromance. Another form of happiness.đđđđđđđđđđStanding on the gates hell, facing the gatesof hell, laughing and weeping on the gates ofhell, I summon you now, my uncontemporarycontemporaries, because you have summonedme to come here, to address you. We summoneach other all the time. This is how the publicspace to summon ourselves is created. Thespace and time to summon the ghosts, the mostlaughable and saddest ghosts of art andphilosophy. This is not an end in itself. The end ofthe ceremony of summoning the ghosts of artand philosophy is the creation of the space of thepublic, the space of remembrance, discussion,laughter, and weeping – on the face of the gatesfacing the gates. Leaping around like frogs in thisspace on the gates, we recreate the faith in thisspace of art and philosophy through our mutualleaps. But this faith, as illusionary as it mayseem, is a faith in there being more than justhell. A faith in there perhaps being a body and asoul, and something to share between bodiesand souls, something more than we deserve andsomething more than hell will ever have to offer.đđđđđđđđđđShanghai, Fall 2009đđđđđđđđđđ×

Jan Verwoert is an art critic based in Berlin. He is acontributing editor at Frieze and writes regularly aboutcontemporary art for magazines such as Afterall andMetropolis M. He teaches in the Fine Arts MA programat the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam.

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đđđđđđ1I am indebted to EsperanzaRosales for explaining the U.S. tome using this expression.

đđđđđđ2Irit Rogoff, “Unfolding theCritical” (Berlin Tanzkongress,April 2006). Seehttp://www.sarma.be/text.asp?id=1347 (audio).

đđđđđđ3Franco Bifo Berardi, The Soul AtWork (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e),2007), 9.

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