#53 Autumn 2017

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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! 

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Views Switzerland

Wolfgang Tillmans at Fondation Beyeler by Dorian Batycka, David Claerbout at Schaulager by Elise Lammer, „A Word Is a Shadow that Falls on a Lot of Things” at Ausstellungsraum Klingental by Elise Lammer

Views Germany

Wu Tsang at Kunsthalle Münster by Kolja Reichert, "Generation Loss" at Julia Stoschek Collection Düsseldorf by Robert Schulte, Anne Speier at Portikus in Frankfurt by Sofia Leiby, "After the Fact: Propaganda in the 21st Century" at Lenbachhaus München by Christoph Chwatal

Views Berlin

Moyra Davey's Hemlock Forest at Galerie Buchholz by William Kherbek, Ola Vasiljeva at Supportico Lopez by William Kherbek

Focus View

Skulptur Projekte Münster by Kolja Reichert

Views Tokyo

“What is the relationship between ceramics and contemporary art?” at Kaikai Kiki Gallery by Emily Watlington

Views Vienna

Ericka Beckman at Secession by Maximilian Geymüller, Betty Woodman at Galerie Hubert Winter by Maximilian Geymüller, Samira Elagoz at ImPulsTanz by Gianna Prein

Views London

Luke Willis Thompson's autoportrait at Chisenhale Gallery by Alexander Scrimgeour, "Dreamers Awake" at White Cube by Rebecca Bligh

Views Amsterdam

Edward Krasinski at Stedelijk Museum by Christina Li

Artist's Favourites

by Claire Fontaine

Images Contributed

By Lu Yang, Patrizio Di Massimo, Tobias Zielony, Heji Shin, Marcelo Cipis

Seduction

By Philomene Magers, Britta Thie, Asad Raza, Heidi Ballet, Ella Plevin

The End is Night

Witness Protection. By Ariana Reines

Postcard

from Washington by Max Pitegoff & Calla Henkel

Q/A Bettina Funcke

Has the readymade lost its power?

One Work

Emily Jacir plans to transform her 127-year-old family home in Bethlehem into an international art centre – Dar Jacir is an ambitious project in which the personal gets political. By Kaelen Wilson-Goldie

Exhibition Histories

Thomas Lawson on Group Material's exhibition "Primer (for Raymond Williams" at Artists Space (1982)

Q/A Yael Bartana

Can documentary communicate the truth?

Field Note

Smartphones and social media have inserted themselves between us and the outside world, but this is an problem in a new form – the pursuit of unmediated experience has always been a hopeless endeavour. By Rob Horning 

Time Warp

Roger Federer has become the first player ever to win 20 Grand Slam titles. Asad Raza wrote an ode to him and his sport, bringing some light to a dark time.

Q/A Tristan Garcia

What is the Real?

Curator's Key

Gabi Ngcobo, curator of the next Berlin Biennale, on Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi’s Tears of Africa (1987–88)

Q/A Wayne Koestenbaum

What is the porn punctum?

Welcome to the Gucciverse

The winds are changing in the world of fashion. The era of Demna Gvasalia, Gosha Rubchinskiy and their ilk is nearly over. Gucci is back, taking fashion from the streets into space, with a new aesthetic of eternity that sells the promise of a better world for all. By Ella Plevin

Artists Inc.

In view of the enduring proximity of art and commerce, why does the art world stubbornly hold on to its hypocritical moralism? On artists who have crossed the line in the sand, whether by founding companies or finding other ways to experiment with alternative models of artistic autonomy. By Martin Herbert

Interview Verena Dengler

The power of Verena Dengler's art does not lie in individual objects but in the polyphonic stories they invoke. She finds the weak spots in the dominant view of reality and authoritarian discourses and puts them under strain in the hope of breaking authoritarian discourses once and for all. By Tenzing Barshee

ESSAY

Reality can’t be trusted. apparently we are living in a simulation, everybody is talking about post­truth, and “Real food” is an advertising pitch. But reality hasn't disappeared, it's just infused with fiction. By Klaus Speidel

Interview Francesco Vezzoli

Francesco Vezzoli is mostly associated with the extreme glamour and Hollywood stars of the work he had made around ten years ago. Since then, times have changed. In a moment when celebrity culture has become the hard reality of politics and the art world, nothing is innocent anymore. By Dean Kissick

Portrait Maria Hassabi

The slow, elegant movements of bodies in Maria Hassabi's performances turn them into images that toggle unsettlingly between play, splay, and display. By Harry Burke

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