In the debut conversation of The Spike Podcast, print columnist and novelist Tea Hacic-Vlahovic speaks to Travis Diehl, a New York-based critic and poet, about his exploits: from his monthly Spike column "Libra Season," to his book-length essay on Trump & poetry, "A Snake Whistles," and his take on Al.

Or watch a video of their conversation on YouTube via Spike Art

Magazine.

Recorded at Spike Berlin.

In Spike Art Magazine’s Summer 2024 issue, “The State of the Arts,” we invited Daniel Baumann, art historian, critic, and former longtime director of the Kunsthalle Zurich to write on a vocation that, it turned out, he believes is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

After the digital republication of his print article struck a chord online, the magazine brought together a roundtable at the Julia Stoschek Foundation Berlin in November 2025, featuring Daniel himself; independent curator Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu, who has worked with the Istanbul Biennial and DOCUMENTA (13), among others; and Luca Lo Pinto, former artistic director of MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. 

Moderated by writer and editor Pablo Larios, they discussed what went wrong in the trajectory of a vocation that, not so long ago, was the darling of global art.

Sound and editing for this episode are by Sören Hochberg. Our theme music is from Seth Price’s 2001 track “Die Leguane.”

In Spike’s 20th-anniversary double issue, “The Post-Cool,” we asked several protagonists of Berlin culture if the city remained a world-leading center for contemporary art – or if Berlin as we knew it is really over. Much hand-wringing and many thinkpieces later, the magazine brought together a roundtable at the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Berlin in September 2025, to discuss what comes after “poor but sexy.”

The panel featured dramaturg Matthias Lilienthal, the forthcoming artistic director of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz; art historian and curator Axel Wieder, current director of the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art; and the late artist Henrike Naumann, who passed away in February 2026. Their conversation, moderated by writer and editor Pablo Larios, is dedicated to Henrike’s memory. 

Sound and editing for this episode are by Sören Hochberg. Our theme music is from Seth Price’s 2001 track “Die Leguane.”