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The Real doesn’t exist in a vacuum but is shaped by desire and ideology, fiction and art. Its borders are indistinct, its appeal dubious, its essence elusive. Maybe we live in a simulation. When’s the last time you experienced a glitch? Sometimes another reality intrudes into the one we thought we knew and changes us forever. 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!
Highlights include:
“Artists Inc.” by Martin Herbert
In view of the enduring proximity of art and commerce, why does the art world stubbornly hold on to its hypocritical moralism? Martin Herbert on artists who founded companies or found other ways to experiment with alternative models of artistic autonomy.
Interview with Francesco Vezzoli by Dean Kissick
“Now we’re in the middle of great historical changes, a technological revolution, and art clearly decided to stay out of it. Art has decided to stay out of the digital revolution. Art has decided to stay out of politics. The system that has true power is just continuing on. Yes, you’ve seen some artists on the street, but have you seen any real mob?”
Essay by Klaus Speidel, “How Real Is the Real?”
“While Descartes’ demon may today seem a quaint conceit, the idea that we might be living in an illusion isn’t outdated. Quite the opposite, in fact: computer simulations are getting better and better. Soon it will be impossible to tell a simulated space from a real one.”
“Welcome to the Gucciverse” by Ella Plevin
“And what of the pussy-bow blouse worn by Melania Trump a few days after the president’s pussy-grabbing comment leaks? Also Gucci! #FreeMelania. It’s no surprise that the handmaidens of Alternative Facts have seized upon a knowing visual reality that reflects the chaos we’re living in.” Read it here.
On the cover
Harry Burke on performance artist Maria Hassabi
“What debts do we owe images, and what do we owe objects? And what is different when these take the form of a human body?”
Interview
An interview with Austrian artist Verena Dengler by Tenzing Barshee. Read it here.
Curator’s Key
Gabi Ngcobo on Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi‘s Tears of Africa. Read it here.
Questions
Yael Bartana, Bettina Funcke, Tristan Garcia and Wayne Koestenbaum
Real Feelings
Rob Horning on realness in social media
Sport
Artist and curator Asad Raza on tennis
And
Artist’s Favourites by Claire Fontaine, a postcard from Washington, D.C., by Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, Emily Jacir‘s Kickstarter project Dar Jacir, Group Material‘s show Primer (for Raymond Williams) (1982) at Artists Space, and more…
Views
Including our critics’ takes on Skulptur Projekte Münster, Adrían Villar Rojas in Bregenz, Wolfgang Tillmans at Fondation Beyeler, Erika Beckman at the Secession in Vienna, Edward Krasiński at the Stedelijk, Florine Stettheimer at the Jewish Museum in New York, artist interviews with David Claerbout at Schaulager and Ed Atkins on curating Generation Loss for the Julia Stoschek Collection Düsseldorf.
See the full table of contents and buy the issue here.
Artist’s Edition by Karen Kilimnik
the floral kingdom of the renaissance, 2017
Kilimnik’s edition for Spike embodies the nostalgia and magic common to her practice. Decorative flora and fauna cover a background of deep vermilion red. Each edition is sprinkled with glitter, a prominent motif in her oeuvre.
Edition 25 + 7 AP, Each unique, signed and numbered
620 EUR (incl. VAT, excluding shipping costs)
Click here to buy
The next issue of Spike will be out on December 18.