"Aber etwas fehlt" a conversation between Nancy Spero, Leon Golub, Molly Nesbit and Hans Ulrich Obrist about Utopia and Southern California

(RIP Nancy Spero, August 24, 1926 – October 18, 2009)

Hans Ulrich Obrist: The Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote “We” in 1920 – 1921, which was first published in English in 1924 an influenced Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s “Brave New Word”. These are all dystopias.

Nancy Spero: Utopia, like heaven, is kind of boring in a way. In certain Scandinavian societies, it’s not exactly utopia, but it has been a bit more egalitarian, and people have not suffered. But in terms of people’s happiness or this sense of well-being, there is still a realization that there’s something missing. I personally think it’s due to human nature. The only way we’re going to have utopia is if people live forever and stay in good health. But that would probably turn out to be a terrible dystopia – the ruination of everything. Think what it would mean if everyone lived for ever, no matter who they are – the good, the bad, and the indifferent. I think that, in a certain way, the world would stop. Even with aging populations now, the world is kind of stopping. In Asia it’s still young, but Europe is growing older.

Leon Golub: One of the difficulties is that if we’re going to solve all this, it means solving psychological problems as well. But if all of the causes, all of the sources, all of the irritations, all of the fucked-up situations we’re always under – if you eliminate those, then what Nancy says is correct: life would be pretty boring. Everybody would have an optimum sex life, an optimum economic life, an optimum eating life. Everybody would be like everybody else.

Molly Nesbit: It sounds a bit like Southern California, doesn’t it?

Nancy Spero: Exactly Southern California doesn’t have the rip that New York does. How could I produce my art in California?

Hans Ulrich Obrist: That’s why it’s so interesting you say something is missing

Molly Nesbit: That’s right. The idea of utopia could be summed up in this one sentence by Brecht, that something’s missing. ( “Aber etwas fehlt”, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny)

Nancy Spero: I suppose there are certain people who are self-satisfied. I can’t understand it; it can’t be human. There’s always something that comes along, and there’s always something missing. How could it be otherwise? Even in people who have achieved great success, you see there’s still something missing. Perhaps it’s this hunger you speak about in artists, but I also think it’s in everyone, and it’s insatiable.

(Extracts from the book Nancy Spero, Hans Ulrich Obrsist - The Conversation Series, 2008)