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Samuel Staples

@smstpls

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Curator & Writer
Berlin/Paris

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Tobias Spichtig Shows & Works 2016–2024 @spichtigunlimited

Buchhandlung Walther König @buchhandlungwaltherfranzkoenig

The monograph brings together works from recent exhibitions by Tobias Spichtig @spichtigunlimited including It’s Beautiful When the Spirits Arrive at @taoartspace Taipei (2024); Everything No One Ever Wanted at @kunsthallebasel (2024); Good OK Great Fantastic Perfect Grand Thank You at @swissinstitute (2022); Die Matratzen at @kwinstitutefcontemporaryart (2022); Love and Die @cac_synagoguedelme (2020) @contemporaryfinearts @galeriepeterkilchmann @jan_kaps

Editor: Fabian Schöneich @fabianschoeneich
Assistant Editor: Samuel Staples @smstpls

Authors: Caroline Busta @cbcb2000
Simon Castets @simoncastets
Elena Filipovic
Elisa R. Linn @elisa_r_linn
Benoît Lamy de La Chapelle
Laura McLean-Ferris @lmcleanferris
Alexander Scrimgeour

Design: Teo Schifferli with Martin Lostis @teoschifferli_studio

Published by: Centre d’art contemporain — la synagogue de Delme, Swiss Institute, New York, and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König The publication is made possible through the generous support of: Centre d’art contemporain — la synagogue de Delme, Swiss Institute, New York, Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council, Balima Stiftung, and Stiftung Erna und Curt Burgauer

Thank you Tobi for letting me into your world and for all the Good OK Great Fantastic Perfect Grand times working on the book together 🖤 by @smstpls

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23 days ago

Tobias Spichtig „When a Joke Becomes a Prayer“ 06.03-25.04.2026 @galerie_hussenot

Read the full text by me online now thank-you Tobi @spichtigunlimited

Painting as an act of adoration —
a way of staying close to feeling, to others, to a beauty that might otherwise bruise or disappear.

Lovers on a sofa smoking by an open window. A shadowed piano player. A figure walking through the streets of Paris. Flowers carried, offered, remembered.

Romantic, excessive, slightly awkward. Nothing insists on irony. Everything leans toward belief.

The sunset watched through one’s favourite sunglasses. The rose carried home. The song played too often. A joke so funny it becomes a prayer. taken in Galerie Hussenot by @smstpls

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7 months ago

Some months ago in Paris I had the chance to sit down with one of my longtime heroes and favourite writers, Dennis Cooper. Our conversation is included in the fourth issue of Arcane @arcane_press available now.

It’s hard to describe exactly what the work of Dennis Cooper has meant to me over the years. My first encounters with his work came when I was 15 and bored to death in my mall-parking-lot hometown in Canada, where I devoured the George Miles cycle feverishly over one summer break. Dennis’s work felt sick, obsessive and dangerous yet intimate and true - to call my relationship to his work formative seems like an understatement. His long-running blog was an endless resource for me in those years - one that I still study to this day, and which has undoubtedly informed my aesthetic, literary and artistic sensibilities more than anything else.

Thank-you Dennis @dennis_cooper_writer for your support and kindness. Infinitely grateful.

Thank-you Kye Christensen-Knowles @lomexgallery for your beautiful portraits.

Thank-you @louisdufreche and @antoine_clauss for inviting me again to contribute to this issue. by @smstpls

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a year ago

”WHEN I WOKEUP MY HANDS WERE BLEEDING“

New fiction of the Cooperian ilk for Jon Rafman‘s @jonrafman book: MSM TV GUIDE VOL 2 PROOF OF CONCEPT BOOK out now @spruethmagers @farmersxdaughter @liam.denhamer

A piece about the suburbs, two boys and a blaze in the midwestern sky.

Thank-you Liam and Jon for including my text 🖤 by @smstpls

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4 months ago

Very excited to have a short fiction text included in Jon Rafman’s @jonrafman massive new publication.

MSM TV GUIDE VOL. 2
Jon Rafman, Sprüth Magers

EDITOR
Liam Denhamer

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Liam Denhamer / The Opioid Crisis Lookbook (Dustin Cauchi & Dasha Zaharova)

PUBLISHER
Farmers Publishing

CONTRIBUTORS
Jon Rafman, Liam Denhamer, Talia Ergas Lenett, forcult., Wera Nowak, Dawid Dinh Xuan, Sophia Alvarez, Johanna Stone, Nina Cheb-Terrab, Chelsea Brennan, PSYOP Brotherhood, Aaron Pharness, Antoine Provencherr, Samuel Staples, Mae Noland, Brandon Bowen, Alexei Haddad, Natasha Sandmeier, Honor Levy, Patrick McGraw, Jack Self, Norman M. Klein, Juvenilia Architecture, Halcyon Veil, Tom Schneider, Heavy Traffic Magazine, The Opioid Crisis Lookbook, Dustin Cauchi, Dasha Zaharova, APEX Edition, Rose Marie Johansen, SEX IS DEATH.

SPECIAL THANKS - Alix Ross, Tommy Mandrus, Grant Tyler, Myles Fairhead, Martin Anderson, Nicholas Martin, Misael Oquendo, Autumn Ludi, Bobby McCoy, Madeleine Kunkle, Rob Scharlach, Filip Kosic, Pascal Desjardins, Daniel Keller, Jack Pitney, John Pelech, Polina Dubik, Sandra Rafman, Evita Rafman, Nick Koenig, Malone Urfalian, Lucas McNevin, Casey Rup, Gabrielle Sones, Gian Gisiger

250-page hardcover book

Available at WWW.FARMERS-DAUGHTER.COM @farmersxdaughter

@liam.denhamer @tal9000000 @weanowak @lsdawid @slolphia @josettastone @ninachebt @chelseathepale @antoinetoday @brandon.bowen @alexeiahaddad @natashasandmeier @victim0_o @ptrkmgrw @j_self @halcyonveil @tom____schneider @heavy_traffic_mag @theopioidcrisis_lookbook @dustin_cauchi @dasha_snoww @rosemariejohansen sexisdeath @spruethmagers by @smstpls

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4 months ago

Tobias Spichtig “Heavy Mental“ 🤘🏻 13 Jun - 25 Jul 2025
@galeriepeterkilchmann

Read the full text by me online now
Thank-you Tobi @spichtigunlimited

_

For Tobias Spichtig, painting is a way of staying sane or doing insane things. Like Ozzy Osbourne howling into the void of teenage bedrooms, it’s almost a method—half-joke, half-truth—for not losing your mind while losing it.

The exhibition title, Heavy Mental speaks to a tension at the heart of Spichtig’s work. What remains central in Spichtig’s work is not a fixed iconography but a sensibility shaped by the raw texture of adolescence, the intensity of which remains in subcultural experience, and the aesthetics of affect
throughout life. Music is a structuring influence: not in a directly referential way, but as a conceptual and emotional device.

Metal, in this formulation, becomes both symbol and tool— a language of extremity, a container for unruly feeling, a mode of living. Not a representation of the world, but a way of being inside it: a way of staying sane by joining “the circus of the dark.“

Painting, in this light, becomes a similarly charged activity: a form of self-inscription performed on the edge of chaos. Heavy metal here becomes a metaphor, not just a genre. It stands for everything uncontainable in language—everything felt too much or too early. The fantasy of heavy metal—the drama, the distortion, the darkness —is also real, Spichtig insists. It holds the power of something both juvenile and profound, simultaneously ridiculous and sincere. taken in Galerie Peter Kilchmann by @smstpls

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a year ago

Painted by Tobi 🖤 @spichtigunlimited

“People”
Tobias Spichtig
30 Aug – 26 Oct 2024
Jan Kaps, Cologne @jan_kaps taken in Jan Kaps by @smstpls

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2 years ago

I Recently spoke to the incomparable, Richard Hawkins by phone from L.A. ahead of his largest exhibition to date, “Potentialities,“ opening at Kunsthalle Wien @kunsthallewien November 26.

We spoke about a lot of topics, and surprisingly very little about painting. Spending most of the hour speaking about our shared interests in camp horror, Antonin Artaud, Tatsumi Hijikata and Butoh instead.

Some excerpts from our conversation are featured in print in the new issue of Arcane @arcane_press 4 available now.

Thank-you Richard @richardhawkins03
Thank-you Filippo and Galerie Buchholz @filippoweck

And thank-you to @louisdufreche and @antoine_clauss for inviting me to contribute to this issue 🧟‍♂️ by @smstpls

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a year ago

I recently had the opportunity to speak with one of my favorite artists, Gisèle Vienne. Excerpts from our conversation are included in the second issue of Arcane @arcane_press out May 2 and available for preorder now.

For the past 25 years, Gisèle has been developing a body of work across performance, theatre, sculpture and photography. I first encountered Gisèle’s work several years ago, online through the blog of another idol, Dennis Cooper.

Gisèle was very gracious, and we spoke over a few hours around many topics, among them - a mutual adoration of Georges Bataille, her collaborative work with artists Dennis Cooper (Jerk), and Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg of KTL (Kindertotenlieder). And on notions of hyper-violence - immobility and silence, and our varying perceptive frames of seeing and not seeing.

Thank-you @louisdufreche and @antoine_clauss for inviting me to contribute to this issue.

All dolls from the series “40 Portraits,” by Gisèle Vienne. by @smstpls

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2 years ago

Liam Denhamer @liam.denhamer is a Canadian architect and director of JUVENILIA. In his work, Denhamer employs a unique architectural language that plays on the brutality, conflict, and violence that is inherent in architecture while incorporating subversive countercultural aesthetics. In 2022, he proposed a project titled OPPENHEIMER TOWER to the City of Vancouver to address the rising homelessness and addiction issues within Vancouver's DTES.

The proposal was informed by the fact that the city had provided social housing to the homeless population. Yet, within months most tenants had abandoned their new homes, opting for life on the streets. Others modified their housing arrangements to better suit their lifestyle needs and were forced to evict on the basis of vandalism. This reality shows that architecture needs to serve the people inhabiting it, and not the other way around.

Denhamer aimed to create a new housing model with the goal of translating the aesthetics, materiality, and spatial organization of the DTES and its residents into a singular architecture. The architecture doesn't shy away from the aggressive reality that the residents are used to but mirrors it. Ultimately, the proposal was rejected by the city as it went against the real agenda: cleaning the streets of what society considers scum, a problem, a disease, and not a true attempt at offering a better life to those on the streets battling drug addiction and various hardships.

With this in mind, the architectural intervention at TRAUMA; a collaboration between Zaharova, Cauchi and Denhamer, considers Berlin's need for new initiatives to help with homelessness. A Single Room Occupancy (SRO) is constructed as an architectural prototype using readily available industrial materials which have the capacity to withstand the wear and climate of Germany, and even a party.

Throughout the duration of the exhibition, this ephemeral structure acts as a reclusive niche, creating moments of intimacy as the event rages around it.

_

Trauma Presents: You Can Only Kill Us Once by
@theopioidcrisis_lookbook

Nov. 1-16, 2024

Documentation: Frank Sperling
Produced by TRAUMA Arts and Culture gGmbH taken in Trauma Arts and Culutre by @smstpls

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2 years ago

SATURDAY: Act II / Closing party of ”You Can Only Kill Us Once“ by The Opioid Crisis Lookbook @theopioidcrisis_lookbook

Saturday, Nov. 16
Doors: 22:00

@cometintheflesh
@rabitwhatdreamsmaycome
@bill_kouligas
@crystallmess
@djxmantis

By 1994, Kurt Cobain had become a cultural symbol and voice of a generation. But he was also the symbol of the transition from the pre-opioid crisis in America to the crisis itself, from the War on Drugs’ “Just say no” campaigns to a United States where one in seven suffers from opioid use disorder or has a relative who does. Recent studies suggest that the death toll is expected to rise to at least a million more marytr deaths between now and 2030 if no radical change is implemented.

Cobain never lived to see an Oxy, but the post-Cobain world experienced mutations of neoliberal logic that would sow the seeds of the American opioid crisis almost immediately after his suicide. Beginning in the early 1990s, the influx of neoliberal modes of governance in the US created a system that made it possible for corporate interests and large pharmaceutical companies to promote, produce, and market opioids. Crises tend to expose the workings and structural elements of power logic.

And so, the opioid crisis offers an understanding of the complexity of the modern socio-political and economic context wherein neoliberalism reigns supreme. Yet, From the dark puddles of Martyr blood, endless cultures of resistance have spawned.

You can only kill us once; make it count.

Curated by Dustin Cauchi, Dasha Zaharova and Samuel Staples @dustin_cauchi @dasha_snoww @smstpls

With Works by Cauchi, Zaharova and Liam Denhamer @liam.denhamer

Documentation: Frank Sperling
Produced by TRAUMA Arts and Culture gGmbH taken in Trauma Arts and Culutre by @smstpls

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2 years ago

Longer hair and younger years…
Painted by Tobias Spichtig @spichtigunlimited for his show “Everything No One Ever Wanted” at Kunsthalle Basel.

Love you Tobi 🖤 taken in Kunsthalle Basel by @smstpls

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2 years ago