Spike

Founded by the artist Rita Vitorelli in 2004, Spike (Spike Art Quarterly) is a quarterly magazine on contemporary art published in English which aims at sustaining a vigorous, independent, and meaningful art criticism. At the heart of each issue are feature essays by leading critics and curators on artists making work that plays a significant role in current debates. Situated between art theory and practice and ranging far beyond its editorial base in Vienna and Berlin, Spike is both rigorously academic and stylishly essayistic. Spike's renowned pool of contributing writers, artists, collectors and gallerists observe and reflect on contemporary art and analyse international developments in contemporary culture, offering its readers both intimacy and immediacy through an unusually open editorial approach that is not afraid of controversy and provocation.
 
Vienna
www.spikeartmagazine.com
spike@spikeartmagazine.com
 
Spike - The State of the Arts
Spike #80 – The State of the Arts
2024
English edition
Summer issue, featuring: texts by Travis Diehl, Domenick Ammirati, Anna Kornbluh, Daniel Baumann; interview with painter and gallerist Jamian Juliano-Villani; Aodhan Madden on Maggie Lee, Ser Serpas & K8 Hardy; Jaakko Pallasvuo and Kristian Vistrup Madsen; a guide to decentralized social media; Marina Abramović's secret to longevity; Nicolas Bourriaud on this year's Venice Biennale...
Spike - The Pessimist Issue
Spike #79 – The Pessimist Issue
2024
English edition
How to look at polycrisis without freaking out (with Henrike Naumann, Shirin Neshat, Roberto Villanueva, Ben Davis, Mire Lee, Precious Okoyomon, Ivan Cheng, Nil Yalter, Anselm Franke, Anna Jermolaewa, Catherine Liu, Oliver Ressler, Morag Keil, Jeppe Ugelvig and many more).
Spike - The Night
Spike #78 – The Night
2024
English edition
Winter issue, featuring Mark Leckey, Ellen Cantor, Gertrude Stein, Piotr Uklański, P.Staff, Josephine Pryde, Blackhaine, Diego Marcon, Ingrid Wiener, Olivier Assayas, Jamieson Webster, Steven-Phillips-Horst...
Spike - Field Guide to AI
Spike #77 – Field Guide to AI
2023
English edition
Spike's Autumn issue is decoding AI, beginning with the age-old question of what intelligence is.
Spike - An Artist\'s Life
Spike #76 – An Artist's Life
2023
English edition
Spike #76, around the theme of artists' lives and careers.
Spike - Closed due to Colonialism, Elitism, and a Private Dinner – The Museum Issue
Spike #75 – Closed due to Colonialism, Elitism, and a Private Dinner – The Museum Issue
2023
English edition
Spike #75 fêtes the museum in all its stuffy, messy, showy, old-timey glory, as a home-away-from-home, the address of solace and astonishment. Featuring William Pope.L, Simon Wu, Louise Lawler, Ben Davis, Ann Demeester, Anthony Hudek, Meschac Gaba, Bernadette Van-Huy, Ghislaine Leung, Estelle Hoy, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, and many more. 
Spike - After Beauty
Spike #74 – After Beauty
2023
English edition
Spike #74 is getting over beauty.
Spike - Vulnerability
Spike #73 – Vulnerability
2022
English edition
currently out of stock
McKenzie Wark, Marlene Dumas, Tosh Basco, James Richards, Raimundas Malašauskas, Joanna Walsh, Kandis Williams, Mire Lee, Gustav Metzger, Rob Horning, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, Constance Debré, Luca Lo Pinto, Simone Forti...
Spike - Art and Crime
Spike #72 – Art and Crime
2022
English edition
currently out of stock
The Art & Crime issue (with Asco, Darja Bajagic, James Bridle, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, Sam Kriss, Stéphane Mandelbaum, Arlette-Louise Ndakoze, Cady Noland, Brad Phillips, Tommaso Pincio & Francesco Tenaglia, Tobias Timm...).
Spike - Couples
Spike #71 – Couples
2022
English edition
The Couples Issue (with Chris Kraus, Asa Seresin, Whitney Mallett, Alenka Zupančič, Johanna Hedva, Sam Kriss, Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, Genesis & Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, Darian Leader & Jamieson Webster, Eva & Franco Mattes, Tea Hacic-Vlahovi...).
Spike - Web3
Spike #70 – Web3
2022
English edition
currently out of stock
Spike's "Web3" issue is all about the blockchain (with Holly Herndon, Rhea Myers, Charles Broskoski, Constant Dullaart, Jerry Gogosian, Ruth Catlow, María Paula Fernández, Wassim Z. Alsindi, Damien Hirst, Miao Ying, Harm van den Dorpel, Sarah Friend, Kenny Schachter, Mónica Belevan, Rafaël Rozendaal, Toby Shorin, Mark Alizart, Primavera De Filippi, Elie Ayache, Simon Denny...).
Spike - Storytelling
Spike #69 – Storytelling
2021
English edition
(last copies available!)
In the age of "post-truth", Spike busts the line between fact and fiction open, untangling the politics and implications of crafting (and being crafted by) narrative.
Spike - Patriarchy
Spike #68 – Patriarchy
2021
English edition
Spike's summer issue infiltrates enemy territory, probing the patriarchy and exploring the many forms it takes today.
Spike - Sports
Spike #67 – Sports
2021
English edition
Spike's art & sport issue.
Spike - The Therapy Issue
Spike #66 – The Therapy Issue
2020
English edition
The Therapy Issue: Spike on the couch (contributions by Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Qu Chang, Liam Gillick, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Iman Issa, Sean Monahan, Victoria Campbell, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Jeppe Ugelvig, Jaime Chu, Bianca Heuser, Nicolette Polek, Adina Glickstein, Artur Klinau...).
Spike - Plants
Spike #65 – Plants
2020
English edition
currently out of stock
The 65th issue of Spike, devoted to the theme of plants.
Spike - She Left Home Under A Cloud
Spike #64 – She Left Home Under A Cloud
2020
English edition
Contributions by Laura Owens, Daehyung Lee, Alvin Li, Catherine Malabou, Daniel Baumann, Ubermorgen, Walter Van Beirendonck, Mark von Schlegel, Cao Fei & Hou Hanru, Dean Kissick, Bianca Heuser, Ingo Niermann, Victoria Campbell, Enis Maci...
Spike - NYC Issue
Spike #63 – NYC Issue
2020
English edition
Special New York issue.
Spike - The 2010s
Spike #62 – The 2010s
2020
English edition
Spike's winter issue #62 – “The 2010s” – traces the rise and fall of trends like post-internet art and normcore, and bids farewell to older forms of identity politics that have since been replaced by activism, algorithms, social media, and other forces that transformed the cultural landscape of this decade of disquiet.
Spike - Escape
Spike #61 – Escape
2019
English edition
Where does escape end and escapism begin?
Spike - Immorality
Spike #60 – Immorality
2019
English edition
Art beyond good and evil.
Spike - Lifestyle Protocols
Spike #59 – Lifestyle Protocols
2019
English edition
What can be changed through the twists and tweaks of design, architecture, technology, infrastructure, economics, or daily routines? How can the way we eat, learn, dress, live, and talk be a way to renew ourselves, and so too our society, from the ground up? Given that a different present is almost impossible to imagine and utopia is currently out of reach, this issue looks at the non-heroic ways of doing things differently that can open our minds and make the world better. This issue is all about lifestyle protocols.
Spike - It\'s magic!
Spike #58 – It's magic!
2019
English edition
currently out of stock
Spike Art Magazine #58 (“The Magic Issue”) inaugurates a new formula all in English.
Spike - There is no such thing as society
Spike #57 – There is no such thing as society
2018
bilingual edition (English / German)
Special 1980's Issue: artist/activist collective Gran Fury; Liam Gillick; Philippe Thomas; London “style bible” magazines The Face and i-D; Bob Nickas; interview with Pippa Garner; the music criticism of American Spycho's Patrick Bateman; Rosemarie Trockel; 80s Vienna art scene; Mathieu Copeland on post-modernism; Helene Winer; Ericka Beckman; Jean Baudrillard: the signature thinker of the 80s…
Spike - Culture Wars
Spike #56 – Culture Wars
2018
bilingual edition (English / German)
This issue is about the return of the family in neoliberalism, the influence of the political right on the arts, about #metoo, indie and Édouard Glissant, about young rappers and life in the commune. With Otto Muehl, Sandra Mujinga, Christoph Schlingensief, Anselm Franke, Aria Dean, Yewande Omotoso, Alison Gingeras, Seth Meyers, Liam Gillick, Dean Kissick, Alice Creischer, and many more.
Spike - Fashion
Spike #55 – Fashion
2018
bilingual edition (English / German)
Issue devoted to the relations between art and fashion.
Spike - New formations
Spike #54 – New formations
2018
bilingual edition (English / German)
Anicka Yi; on “post-work” by Tom McCarthy; Twing Peaks: The Return, by Philippe Parreno & Asad Raza; death of the art gallery model: a round table; Gilbert & George; Oliver Laric; new formats in digital art; Do we need a new avant-garde?; interview with the Contemporary Art Writing Daily; Courbet's La dame au podoscaphe; Documenta X (1997) by Daniel Baumann; John Russell by Tobias Madison; Manifesto for the public museum; reviews from London, Milan, New York, Paris…
Spike - The Real
Spike #53 – The Real
2017
bilingual edition (English / German)
This issue of Spike looks at the real as a fault-line of art and a utopian horizon of its agency. Welcome to the oasis of the real (featuring Francesco Vezzoli, Maria Hassabi, Asad Raza, Emily Jacir, Wayne Koestenbaum, Gabi Ngcobo, Tristan Garcia, Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff…)!
Spike - What exhibitions do
Spike #52 – What exhibitions do
2017
bilingual edition (English / German)
The future of the exhibition space; virtual reality; Documenta 14 in Athens; Liam Gillick on Rirkrit Tiravanija's “untitled (1992) free”; Q&A with Benjamin H. Bratton, Adriana Lara, and Rózca Farkas; Karen Kilimnik by Barry Schwabsky; images contributed by Elad Lassry, Sophie von Hellermann, GCC, Alex Da Corte; reviews from Austria, Berlin, Switzerland, Brussels, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles…
Spike - Can Art Help?
Spike #51 – Can Art Help?
2017
bilingual edition (English / German)
Spike #51 raises the question of the social role of art, and many more, with: Grzegorz Kowalski; Bob Flanagan's Visiting Hours; Angela Bulloch on Damien Hirst; Cyprien Gaillard's Desniansky Raion; a roundtable with Chus Martínez, Michaela Meise and Dieter Lesage; Dorothea Von Hantelmann; Kenny Schachter; Daniel Baumann; the portraits of Dorothy Iannone, Tetsumi Kudo, and Marie Angeletti; an interview with Josef Strau; an essay by Jan Verwoert; the TV series The Crown; Andrew Berardini on Jimmie Durham's retrospective in LA…
Spike
Spike #50
2017
bilingual edition (English / German)
Special Family Issue.
Spike - Net Art and After
Spike #49 – Net Art and After
2016
bilingual edition (English / German)
currently out of stock
This issue traces the path of digital creation, from 90s Net Art to today's Post-Internet artists.
Spike - Erase the Traces
Spike #48 – Erase the Traces
2016
bilingual edition (English / German)
This issue explores contemporary archetypes—the microcelebrity, the one-percenter, the refugee, the feminist, the sleeper, the saviour, and the thief—who likewise occupy a position between hyper- and invisibility within the social space.
Spike - The Body
Spike #47 – The Body
2016
bilingual edition (English / German)
Special Trans-and Posthumanism Issue: curator's key by Anselm Franke, 1992's “Post Human” group show, Hans Scheirl's Dandy Dust, eating the future: a roundtable, how to become an alien, portraits of Ian Cheng, Stelarc and Hannah Perry, Bernhard Willhem on the perfect body of the future, Transformers: an essay by Bryan Droitcour, Elisa Ambrogio's music videos, Guyotat's Eden Eden Eden…
Spike - What is to be done?
Spike #46 – What is to be done?
2016
bilingual edition (English / German)
Since its inception, Spike Art Quarterly stands for independent, critical reporting on the arts, and provides the current cultural debates with emerging artists and leading writers. Thisissue looks for political alternatives and resistance into the art world, and includes discussions between Claire Fontaine's Fulvia Carnevale, Rory Rowan, Constant Dullaart & Toke Lykkeberg, portraits of Tobias Madison, Barbara Kruger and Omer Fast, an interview with Armen Avanessian, Liam Gillick on the British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis, Chus Martínez on the role of art in generating new cultural forms...
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