Issue 69
184 Pages
21,7x28cm
2021

How do our parables and myths, fibs and fabulations create realities of their own design? The line between fact and fiction has been murky since long before “post-truth” got added to the dictionary. We’re not here to police that distinction — instead, we bust it open, untangling the politics and implications of crafting (and being crafted by) narrative. For Spike #69, we explore embellishment, auto-fiction, and all the anxiety and nonsense that lingers in between. Headless brands, philosophers reanimated in virtual reality, and social-media-savvy dogs feature among the cast of characters in this issue, disclosing the power plays and narrative networks that refashion — not just recount — the world. It’s not just hearsay.

With contributions by Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Joshua Citarella, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, Martin Herbert, Omar Kholeif, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Sean Monahan, features on Tracey Emin, Sophie Calle, Julien Ceccaldi, Ho Tzu Nyen, and many more, as well as reviews from Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Vienna.

Run by the artist Rita Vitorelli, Spike is a contemporary art magazine, online platform, and event space. The flagship print magazine Spike is aimed at sustaining a vigorous, independent, and meaningful art criticism. Essays by leading critics and curators are complemented by other formats offering room for polemics, meditations, and short answers to urgent questions. Published four times a year, Spike offers its readers both intimacy and immediacy through an unusually open editorial approach that is not afraid of controversy and provocation.