Exhibitions

Special Special is pleased to announce CHKRA, the world’s first couture sound spa by sound artist Tsung. 

High-end luxury can be empowering, but it is too often exclusive and out of reach. CHRKA’s mission is to free the energy of luxury to all—making it accessible, inclusive, and waste-free—so that everyone can experience the ultimate retail therapy. 

Attendees are invited to relax and heal through the pure energies of seven hand-picked fashion icons (AXWG, ISMK, RKWN, LVTN, CHNL, YVLSL, BRBY). Sound therapies are known to heal by using specific frequencies to recharge the seven key Chakra points of the body, from Root to Crown. The frequencies of these sounds are believed to form the core of the Universe, based in an old tradition of healing sounds. 

Special Special and Tsung worked to adapt these healing concepts to the world of fashion—spending months capturing the unique signatures of each brand at their flagship—and then fine-tuning the field recordings to extract the essence of each and matching them to their native chakra point.  

Attendees at Special Special are invited to enter seven distinct sensory environments intended to resonate and align these seven Chakric points. The audio tracks and takeaway packets of the CHKRA energies will be available for purchase, so attendees may continue their therapeutic experiences at their leisure.

Artist Biography

Tsung is the solo project name for John Chao. In his solo work, John has written for dance, film, and electronic performance. As a practicing Buddhist, his projects as Tsung have a particular focus on traditions of spiritual music. He has a background in classical, electronic, and experimental music. John is also part of the collective Misha, signed to Tomlab Records (The Books, Xiu Xiu). He is based in New York City.

Looking can be an activation of power, which gives meaning to forms and materials. Ceramics can be viewed as ordinary objects like the vessels in a domestic setting or abstractions of the human body. Concentrated looking at ceramics offers an opportunity to subvert or embody any number of gazes – Orientalist, male, Marxist, formalist, feminist, etc.

To celebrate the close of Illuminations, a solo show by Jenny Hata Blumenfield at Special Special, and in collaboration with Wildman Clab’s The Frontiers Conference, Blumenfield and Wildman Clab invite you to share your own gaze and interact with 10-15 “vessels” deemed as such by Blumenfield. Some sourced, some made, some broken, some whole. 

The Frontiers Conference is a continuous series of performances that joins and highlights artists on the fringe of various artistic movements. Organized by Wildman Clab as part of their year-long events residency at Special Special.

Special Special is pleased to announce Illuminations, a solo exhibition by Jenny Hata Blumenfield featuring a collection of ceramics and cyanotypes. Blumenfield calls upon recurring themes in her practice with references to traditional vessel forms and deconstruction of objects into planar surfaces to develop a new area of exploration—translating objects to images through cyanotype printing.

In Illuminations, Blumenfield continues to explore symbolism and manipulation of the recognizable formal language of ceramic vessels. By referencing, dissecting, layering, and repurposing classical ceramic forms, she reimagines vessels as hybrids, prioritizing sculptural and architectural qualities over specific functionality. References to historical ceramic works are distilled into surfaces, cross-cut profiles, and partial vessels, finished in a refined and simplistic manner with primary colored glaze.

Blumenfield’s ceramic sculptures accompany cyanotype prints and formulate a new series of miniature installations. These sculptures are also reproduced as flattened images through cyanotype printing, using their cast shadows to replicate their forms, where natural light translates three-dimensional form to two-dimensional image.

Blumenfield creates compositions for cyanotype prints by placing sculpted objects in space, where the resulting image combines qualities of light, time, and location. The print echoes the dimensionality of the source object or vessel by defining its edges and representing its depth through gradient hues of blue.

As the artist highlights specific elements of traditional ceramics in her sculptures, the cyanotype prints work similarly to deconstruct a three-dimensional vessel and re-contextualize it as a static image. The result of each print presents the source object (vessel), light (environment), and a momentary determination of its place in space and time (the artist’s hand).

An artist’s book, also titled Illuminations, is produced in collaboration with Special Special and released for the occasion of the exhibition as Special Special Edition No. 36. Printed in an edition of 100, the book features selected images of Blumenfield’s works, flattened to one color, and split across each spread by depicting the same image processed as positive and negative­—as two parts of a whole and as the presence and absence of light.

For the release of Yi Xin Tong’s NYC Fishing Journal from Gong Press at Special Special, artist and fisherman Yi Xin Tong will hold an informative and possibly useful workshop on fishing in NYC. Participants will learn about the various fish species traveling through the city, effective methods of meeting them, the advantages of fishing, and the inevitable disasters that arise. Gain hands-on experience making fishing rigs that you can take home. With air conditioning and cold drinks provided, this workshop is perfect for those who can’t make it to the beach on this hot summer day. 

This workshop is part of the poetry/performance series, The Frontiers Conference, organized by Wildman Clab at Special Special for their year long residency.

Yi Xin Tong is a nowhere-based artist and fisherman. He enthusiastically appropriates studio time for fishing, which brings him to urban peripheries where ruins fill in for buildings, social order becomes unstable, and wildness returns at a surprisingly fast clip. Fishing is an unusual exploration of the environment that leads to peculiar experiences. Casting in the scorching sun and engulfing fog along the shores, he searches for fish who feed with the ocean’s tides, at times disremembering what era it is.

Founded by Lu Zhang in 2017, Wildman Clab is a lab and club for researching and proving the existence of primitive individuals by providing activities and experiences. Wildman Clab currently resides in Special Special, organizing The Frontiers Conference (TFC) as their year-long residency. TFC is a series of experiences created in collaboration with pioneers at the frontiers of art, such as poets, musicians, and artists, in search of new forms of poetry readings and performances.

Special Special hosted a pop-up sale of Japanese Workman boots in shoes, featuring unisex hi-top, low-top, canvas, rubber, steel-toe, and slip-on footwear starting at $50.

Japanese construction workers’ shoes are known for their flexibility, durability, and barefoot-feeling comfort. Tokyo boasts an entire subculture dedicated to the clothing of their high-rise steel workers and construction tradesmen. Their free flowing pants and practical footwear have become fashionable among all construction trades. The pop-up sale celebrates the hard work and high style of these Japanese workers!