Spike #74 is getting over beauty. The dawn quatrains and swan courtships we remember in rose tint – all that sublime uplift – we need to cut contact. Beauty might have become corny behind the monolith of our infatuation, or maybe it was gutted and discarded as art became another instrument of moral debt. Whatever it is, it’s changed, and it’s clear we’ve long been in love with decadence or emptiness. 

So this is our missive to beauty for all that it’s been and may yet be: a magnetic evil and the very eye of its beholders; a blank invitation and a reason to blush; and power or propaganda camouflaged as makeup compacts and endless streams of Instagram tags. 

Featuring K Allado-McDowell, Lynne Tillman, Vaginal Davis, Sylvie Fleury, Sianne Ngai, Boris Groys, Billy Tang, Joanna Walsh, Stephanie LaCava, Dean Kissick, Rita Ackermann, Yves Klein, Emily Segal, Harumi Yamaguchi, Daniel Baumann, Quinn Latimer, and many more.

184 pages