Spike #88
216 x 280 mm, 160 pages
Vienna, Austria & Berlin, Germany (English-language)
Quarterly
Published since 2004
Editor-in-chief: Rita Vitorelli
Art director: Gian Gisiger
Spike is a themed art magazine; this Summer 2026 issue is titled ‘Spirituality’ and explores how the art world is responding to the contemporary zeitgeist’s obsession with the metaphysical. In the words of the Spike team: ‘A higher power is having a moment. From the growth of Latin Mass and meditation apps, to evangelisms for AI and theoretic wars, the metaphysical heft is piling up.’
Inside: Jamaican scholar and sound artist Isis Semaj-Hall’s critical portrait of the late reggae icon Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry sheds light on his visual oeuvre’s spiritual and cultural roots, giving context to the famous refrain: ‘I am a madman / come to cool the bad man’; Korean-American writer and musician Johanna Hedva’s essay ‘The Voice Is a Fishing Net and God Is Water’ navigates pain and grief in the age of optimisation, noting that ‘suffering belongs to the body; but, always looming on the horizon, doom belongs to the imagination’; and an interview with Amazonian artist Santiago Yahuarcani explores his use of natural pigments on cloth to preserve the pride, history, and cultural heritage of the White Heron Clan in the northern Amazon region of Peru.
On the Journal, about an earlier issue:
‘I love Spike magazine. The quarterly art magazine has been published since 2004 by artist Rita Vitorelli and has just reached its 50th issue. It follows an idiosyncratic editorial direction – part of its strength is its refusal to follow the crowd, and the art mag shelf is a crammed one. It’s not easy to stand out, but Spike’s mix of written and visual essays brings a more curatorial than editorial approach. And the main reason it stands out is its design.’
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