Journal — editorial

A Small Pond Under the Blue Sky has landed!

It's been over year since we closed our East Village storefront,Ā but instead of lounging by the pool, we've been hard at work compiling this compendium of all of our past projects and we are so excited toĀ finally be able to share it all with you!!!

SAVE THE DATE!
Book Preview:
September 15ā€“16th, 2023
REHEARSAL ARTBOOK FAIR


Book Launch Party:
OctoberĀ 13, 2023

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A Small Pond Under the Blue Sky is a reflection and celebration of the 98 artist collaborations, through 37 exhibitions, performances, and workshops. A record of the pop-ups and product editions conceptualized and presented in our East Village space and beyond from 2016 to 2022. This anthology includes interviews with artists collaborators Aria McManus, Tim Simonds, and Lu Zhang, and personal reflections on collaborations and creativity with the founder and director Wen-You Cai. This collection of thoughts guide readers through a contemplation of creative experiments with art and the everyday.

This book was edited by Wen-You Cai and Lin King, and designed by Panny Chayapumh.
First edition of 500

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A peak into the process....

This September we will be celebrating our new release. Find us at one of our activities, and pre-order our book starting next week!

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Good Things Come in Threes: A conversation with Shisi Huang of 3standardstoppage

Editorial
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Ā Shisi Huang, Co-Founder of 3standardstoppage.

We interviewed Shisi Huang, co-founder or ā€œone-thirdā€ of the three-person team that comprises 3standardstoppage, a studio, art bookstore, and mixed-concept space located in New York and Beijing. While they are in the midst of relocating to a new downtown space, their books are available for browsing and purchase at Special Special. Huang talks about the brandā€™s roots in the Bay Area, her own art practice with San Franciscoā€™s Chinatown, and having a natural affinity for hybrid spaces like Special Special.Ā 

1. 3standardstoppageā€™s original location was in San Francisco, and you started it with Xiao and Nanxi after you graduated from San Francisco Art Institute. Can you talk about what those early days were like?

We were schoolmates at the San Francisco Art Institute. Back then, we were hanging out, chatting all the time, making art, and helping with each otherā€™s art-making as needed. It started from a random chat, asking each other, ā€œWhat should we do after graduation?ā€

While school was still in session, the three of us had already fallen in love with books. We had a library with the best view of the ocean and a great collection of books. We spent a lot of time there, which brought us together.

We decided to have a space that mixed books, visual art, and wearable pieces by designers. We also curated exhibitions and artist talks. That was the early look of 3standardstoppage. There were three of us. Xiao was mostly on photo and theory.Ā 

Nanxi was on documentary film. I was doing photo and installations. The year after graduation, I split my time between the shop and doing my own art projects.

2. What was the shopā€™s philosophy in terms of what items you chose to stock? How do you choose the artists and designers that you work with?

Nanxi and I have been best friends since first meeting in school, and clothes shopping together was one of our common activities. I guess we were two big shoppers at the beginning. Selections towards designers we carry are mostly based on our own buying experience and aesthetic preference. We prefer unisex designs and brands.

Later, we realized that almost all of our designers do multidisciplinary things. For example, some of them are clothes designers as well as artists. Some of them make furniture and fashion. We figured out that we prefer to work with this kind of team.

3. I was interested in your own personal practice as an artist. In 2018, you were part of this exhibition that seemed to have activist inclinations, ā€œWomxn, Omen, Women in Chinatownā€ at the Chinese Cultural Center. Can you talk about your work for that show?

That was my last exhibition in San Francisco before moving to New York to run 3standardstoppage full time. I was invited by artist Laura Boles Faw, who was very active in the Bay Area. She used to teach at our school, but I didnā€™t know her through that. It was a great opportunity. At that time, I had been thinking a lot about my own identity, the dilemmas I faced in a foreign country with an identity between an international student and an immigrant. The included artists had different backgrounds. The other two were born and raised in Chinatown. I was the only one who considered myself an outsider. Chinatown for me was not an authentic reflection of China. It was more like a scenario, or a society isolated from both China and Western countries, where time runs way slower compared to China, thatā€™s influenced by a Western fantasy of Eastern people, and that also functions as a tourist attraction.

From left to right: Laura Boles Faw, Bijun Liang, Shisi Huang, Vida K.

I felt like a flaneur walking around in one of the most historical and largest Chinatowns in the world, building up connections with business owners, chatting about their personal life, kids, and business, collecting found materials all around, and taking snapshots of ā€œKitsch Chinese Signifiers.ā€ For deeper engagement with the familiarly strange, yet strangely familiar, I created a ā€œChatting Roomā€ for my project. Using one-way glass, I made a room where I could not see who was talking to me, but they could see me. And then we could ask each other anything.

After we finished conversations in the chatting room, I gave the participant a huge customized fortune cookie which was made in Chinatown. It was offered in exchange for their time chatting with me about what they think people in Chinatown think about, for example, the word ā€œqueer.ā€ This stemmed from my research on San Francisco and its relationship to the queer community. Learning from my experiences walking around, I collected many responses about the quality of life and some hot social topics from Chinatown grownups, business owners, activists, and residents.

There is one bar in Chinatown called LI PO cocktail lounge; it was one of the earliest gay bars in San Francisco. I thought that was odd: why would a gay bar open in Chinatown? San Francisco has one of the most well-known histories of LGBTQ+ activism. LI PO was one of the oldest gay bars in the city. I learned that the history of the fights between Chinatown residents and the cops, the LGBTQ+ community versus repressed sexuality, made ā€œconservatively closedā€ Chinatown neighborhoods protect LGBTQ+ community at the time. As we all know, Chinese people, especially seniorsā€™ attitudes, tend to be very conservative and traditional toward non-normative sexualities. For example, none of my interviewees told me that they would accept their children as a gay or lesbian.

I took a lot of snapshots of Chinatown on my phone, constantly posting to Instagram at the time. The uncanny draws me in. The photos I took in Chinatown didnā€™t match anything in my memory, yet they were perceptively Chinese things. More ironically, Chinese people could never see my photos because Instagram was banned in China. Later before the exhibition, I found the whole process representing my thoughts more precisely. So I didnā€™t just exhibit the photos as a photo series. I displayed them as iphone-sized screenshots for people to see before they entered the chatting room, to inspire some topics.

One girl asked me why white guys always have crushes on Asian girls. I canā€™t remember my response but I was very surprised by it. It was something I never thought about. But later, I started paying attention to what she asked in general.

4. And the title was ā€œGa Liao (å°¬čŠ)ā€?

Ga Liao (å°¬čŠ) is a very interesting Chinese term to me, because Iā€™m not the type of person who can have a conversation naturally with strangers, especially when I am at an art opening where I have to be there even though I am a loner. For example, you meet someone at your own opening and start having a very awkward conversation because you donā€™t have anything in common yet. This project challenged me to push my own boundaries in social situations.

5. How would you say the shop has evolved over time?

We actually did really well in San Francisco for the first two years. The idea of a studio was all new to the three of us and business-wise, we learned from the beginning by experimenting a lot, which was very fun. But San Francisco was really...how do you say...the people there turned out to be very...simple? (laughs) No, not that way. I mean to say ā€œē®€å•åŒ–ā€ (simplified), not diverse like in New York. San Francisco turned out to be focused more on big tech. Large companies like Facebook started moving into the city and raising expenses. It priced out a lot of people in art and design.

  • We were considering moving to a more energetic and diverse city. So in 2019, half of us moved to New York and the other half to Beijing. At that moment, one of our partners, Nanxi, was from Beijing. Even though for other people learning about China, Beijing seems like a very political symbol, still, culturally, for young peopleā€™s culture, Beijing is the city.

  • Ā 

    post post space, the Beijing outpost of 3standardstoppage.

    6. What are some of the challenges to maintaining your own practice and managing a business?

    Moving to New York was a decision that was both cautious and impulsive. I have this impulse to move to somewhere where I donā€™t know anyone. My personal challenge was just starting over. I have had non-stop challenges even until now (laughs), like creating a store and dealing with real estate people. Making new friends in the city. How can I manage everything by myself? Itā€™s always a challenge.

    7.Ā It seems like youā€™re doing well now.

    (laughs, sighs) Doing better.

    8. What do you see in the future for 3ss?

    The New York store will reopen later this year. Our ideal situation would be for our stores to run by themselves. To be financially and creatively independent, which is significant for the consideration of our long-term future. I also plan to do more collaborative projects, curatorial events, music/sound art experiments, and our own publications.

    9. Who has been your most interesting customer?

    I have had a lot of fun experiences observing customers in the store. ClĆ©ment ChĆ©roux, Chief Curator of Photography at MoMA, came in a lot. He used to work at SFMoMA, which was what we started our conversation with. Recently, he told me that he has recommended lots of our books to MoMAā€™s library, and considers 3standardstoppage one of the best bookstores in New York. I was honored and encouraged by his feedback, which came to me during times when I was struggling the most.

    Special Special, New York.


    LATITUDE Gallery, Brooklyn.

    10. Can you talk about how you curated mobile 3ss, which is at Special Special right now?

    Our #mobile3ss project was something in my mind for a long time. When Shihui Zhou, the owner of Latitude Gallery, came to me to curate a mini publication collection for their space, that was when the #mobile3ss project became more clear in my mind. A lot of misinterpretation and misunderstanding happened during my initial conversations with Zhou, so I decided to curate a long-running book collection for their space based on the ideas of ā€œmis-reading / mis-understanding.ā€ Later, Wen-You asked me to do a pop-up at Special Special. We actually went to Taipei together once and became very close. For Special Special, I curated what I think represents the full collection of 3standardstoppage books.

    I want to experiment with this in the future, to change what we can do for each different space, a site-specific book curatorial project.

    Restaurants and grocery stores are places I want to work with. Let guests purchase a book there, as they would a chocolate or ice cream. It is fun to erase the divides between so-called ā€œcultural goodsā€ and consumer goods. There is no big difference between enjoying a book and enjoying a cup of matcha affogato, and itā€™s even better having them together.

    Ā 

    This interview has been condensed and reformatted for clarity. As told to Danie Wu.


    Special Special Eating Club ā€“ Part I: Hunger for that Elusive Taste
    by Banyi Huang

    Editorial
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    Diasporic longing does do strange things to you.

    For me, the source of a deep gastro-sentimental attachment is Fujianese food. Unlike the flashiness of Sichuan food or the lavishness of Cantonese dishes, Fujianese cuisine is more subdued. Chefs from the region prefer to play up the natural umami of seafood and extend the taste through broth. My fatherā€™s hometown is Minqing, a small county near the city of Fuzhou in Southern China. I wouldnā€™t have been drawn to the subtlety of Fujianese cooking if not for his insistence on scouring the streets for tasty spots in Fuzhou everytime we visited during my childhood, whether it was time-honored brands in the city center or seafood stalls in the middle of nowhere. When enjoying a bowl of freshly-made fish balls, the thick membrane of fish meat initially puts up a resistance. Then, hot grease oozes out when you get to the marinated meat filling. Afterwards, taking a spoonful of fresh broth cleanses the palette.


    Since moving to the United States, I have not had many occasions to seek out Fujianese food. I was naturally excited for the opportunity to sample and share some obscure dishes that I would have the upperhand in introducing and explaining. The Special Special team had settled on the idea of an eating club, where each of us would explore a cuisine that holds special special meaning, and reveal an intimate part of ourselves in the process. Together with Wen-You Cai, who has Fujianese family ties, and Danie Wu, whose family is from Yangzhou, a city in Jiangsu province, I found Fou Man Lou Seafood Restaurant, a Fujianese establishment in Sunset Park. It was rated three-star out of five on Fantuan (Mandarin for ā€œrice ballsā€), a food delivery app that not only delivers East Asian food, but also takes payment in RMB through WeChat, the most popular messaging and social media app used by Chinese communities all over the world. Suffering from a slight geographic disorientation, we placed an order from this restaurant and waited in anticipation at our gallery in the East Village.

    For almost two hours, my eyes were glued to Fantuanā€™s app screen, as a transnational rice ball breaks the walls of geography, currency, and diasporic disidentification, ever so slowly. For those of us accustomed to deliveries that average 30 minutes, and having purposefully not had breakfast to prepare for this feast, our hunger was palpable. Finally, the delivery person arrived, apologizing for the delay due to traffic. When he handed me the food, he asked, ā€œWhy didnā€™t you just order from Manhattan Chinatown?ā€ Demonstrating zero allegiance to the restaurant he worked at, he suggested that it would have been far better to order from a Fujianese restaurant that was closer and had better food. In a single blow, I was rendered speechless. My desire for an authentic, hometown palette had severely clouded my judgement.

    We laid out all the dishes on the table: fish balls, rouyan (wontons made with meat-infused wrappers), oyster omelette, peanut noodles, marinated sea snails, and to top it off, a giant tub of mashed sweet taro. Matching the delivery personā€™s warning, the food was far from my expectations: the flavors were a little tepid, and the textures a little too soft. So much cooking wine was used in the snails that we almost got drunk from it. The rouyan, too, had gone through such a series of transformations that the chewing experience was hardly recognizable. Marcel Proust, in his most famous book volume In Search Of Lost Time (ā€œĆ€ la recherche du temps perduā€), recalls an episode from his childhood after tasting a madeleine dipped in tea. The melding of taste and texture sent a shudder through his body, recalling Sunday mornings he spent with his aunt. For me, nostalgia for times past is synonymous with diasporic longing, just like how my father, who moved from Fuzhou to Beijing in his youth, never got tired of searching for fish balls that tasted right. Even though these dishes did not induce a Proustian jolt, sharing a meal like this together is a search for that elusive feeling of authenticity.


    Be Prepared, But Donā€™t Be Scared: Mercury in Retrograde
    by DJ Hanouni

    Editorial
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    Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā 
    From @kittykill on Lettuce Craft

    Itā€™s easy to panic in the face of Mercury retrograde. However, fear-mongering is not part of my astrology, especially when weā€™re talking about common planetary transits. Although this current retrograde wonā€™t be as typical as others, it doesnā€™t mean that we should expect the worst. We can prepare and work with Mercury instead of against it. Think of retrogrades as a spring cleaning; they give us back the time that we spent neglecting ourselves, to review our circumstances and ensure they still remain in line with our values. With two planets and the North Node currently in Gemini, in addition to being in the midst of eclipse season, be prepared to let things end naturally. Donā€™t force control.

    This time around, Mercury retrograde runs from May 29ā€“June 22, with the post-shadow period lasting for about two weeks after. In retrograde, Mercuryā€™s qualities are stunted and present challenges. Expect the usual annoyances like delays in transportation, jumbled communication, and misheard or misread sentencesā€“especially since Mercury is currently in Gemini, the sign that it rules over. Itā€™s best to avoid signing contracts or making permanent or serious decisions during this time due to the heightened potential for mishaps. But if it must be done, donā€™t be scared! Just review everything more carefully and take more time than you usually would to notice errors in order to ensure complete success. Mercury also rules over siblings, so patterns and thoughts about them, especially when reviewing your relationships from childhood, could be present at this time as well.Ā 

    Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā 
    Ā From Mystic Medusa

    Social butterflies and natural communicators, Geminis know how to start the party and keep it going all at once. They often bear the weight of this high pressure status: how do I stay true to myself without upsetting others? How can I be the life of the party when I donā€™t always feel up to it? As an air sign, most of these concerns for Gemini stay cerebral and often contribute to negative mental clutter.

    For those with personal placements (sun, moon, rising, venus, mercury, or mars) in Gemini, you may be experiencing such themes and thoughts regarding sociability now. Others most affected include remaining mutable signs: Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. The lesson to learn from these old traumas, people, or coping mechanisms popping up now is to recognize how youā€™ve grown out of them and why they no longer have a place in your life. Itā€™s like renewing a contract with your brain, filtering out thoughts that donā€™t accurately reflect your reality. Things may feel off, wonky, a little chaotic, and rushed. The emphasis here is to take your time and go at your own pace. Choose your words carefully and try not to immediately react to whatever comes your way. Ignore external pressure from others and do what you need to do to feel more grounded and balanced during this time.


    Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  The Lovers card, which represents Gemini, is about duality and taking Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  thoughtful time before making important decisions. From thetarotlady

    On June 10, there will be a new moon solar eclipse in Gemini to add a little spice to an already potent planetary cocktail. Until then, continue to let go of things that kickstarted during the full moon lunar eclipse on May 26. Eclipses bring a rush of change along with them, inviting us to take new paths we didnā€™t previously have the clarity to see. However, remember that this is a good time to review and consider these new paths, but not to quite act on them yet. Once Mercury is direct, or no longer appearing to be moving backwards, itā€™s a good time to see if your ideas still make sense in reality.

    Every transit affects everyone in some way! We all have every sign and planet present in our charts, just placed together in different ways. So next time thereā€™s an urge to slander a particular sign, know that that energy is present in you too! For further insight on how this retrograde will personally affect you, see what planets you may have in Gemini and what house it rules in your chart (the circular ones, please!). My favorite free resource for charts is astro.com, where you can also make a profile and keep your charts saved to review at any time.

    Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā 
    From astro.com

    Using my chart as an example, Iā€™ve circled the Gemini symbol in red. Gemini rules over my 8th house, one traditionally ruled by Scorpio with themes of sex, death, rebirth, the subconscious, and shared resources. This indicates some sort of strong transformation and reinventing of myself over this retrograde, as well as hidden things in my subconscious coming to light in order to be eliminated. Iā€™m pretty excited about this because itā€™s only bringing me closer to who Iā€™m meant to be in this life. The more I can let go of, the better.

    I used to read about transits and feel my heart drop when I read what othersā€™ interpretations had in store for my sign. But when we can take back the agency over how we read ourselves and the planets, knowing their meanings are not inherently ā€œgoodā€ or ā€œbadā€ but rather here to work with us as ethereal bodies informing our earthly ones, the panic subsides. At the end of the day, you know yourself better than anyone who reads your chart. Your chart does not determine immediate doom in your life. Itā€™s still your life and your choices. But when things feel off and you can pinpoint why and how to help yourself, why not use astrology as a tool?

    Ā 


    Happy Mommy Issues Day by Danie Wu

    Editorial
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    David Hockney, Portrait of Mother I, 1985.

    If things are not always so at peace with the family matriarch, it is a truth universally acknowledged that you must disguise all evidence of this on Motherā€™s Day. On the first Sunday of every May, social media blooms with ingratiating Motherā€™s Day wishes. Vintage photographs sentimentalizing a rosy MILF that we were too young to know. Side-by-side portraits confirming we are indeed the more collagenated offspring of a faded beauty. Motherā€™s Day reifies old ideas of honor, respect, and memoriam that leave no room for fatal flaws.

    Itā€™s understandable why some might not want to lift this gauzy romantic veil. It not only disguises but also protects the truth from callous judgement; I think of Cathy Park Hong, who wrote that her own mother was too precious a topic to cover in her book, Minor Feelings. Instead, let us step back to examine the creation of a normative mother figure, or the type of motherhood that merits praise. What else is there to idealized feminine beauty in heterotopic Christian tradition than to ā€œbe fruitful and multiplyā€ (Genesis 1:28)? Can there be more to admire about a woman, other than her ability to complete pale Eveā€™s duties and remain Virgin Mary?

    Gong Li inĀ Raise the Red Lantern (1991)


    Even the apparently ā€œperfectā€ mother demands us to scrutinize her lack; a Stepford wife must be compromised because fantasy is meant to be unachievable. Conversely, it is not encouraged to be a childless woman, or an woman without abundance. A mother lode is the principal vein of an ore or mineral, merely a point of resource extraction. If a barren core, she is discarded, hardly of any value. It is even more taboo, if ever entertained at all, to be a reluctant mother, as Tilda Swinton plays in We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) or Mia Farrow in Rosemaryā€™s Baby (1968). If a mother is measured purely by the societal viability of her children, what happens to the mother of a criminal, or a woman who bears rotten fruit?

    Itā€™s quite adult to have Daddy issues, but Mommy issues reduce you to a suckling child. Society seems stuck in the previous century, when Sigmund Freud first proposed that it was natural child psychology for mothers to become alluring objects (Oedipus Complex), and yet rejected the notion that the same could apply to fathers (Sorry, Electra Complex, proposed by Carl Jung!). Freud claimed that psychosis marked a male childā€™s unsuccessful passage through sexual attraction to his own mother. One thinks of, for example, Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcockā€™s Psycho,Ā whose domineering single mother stunted his mental state to the degree that he engages in murderous rampages, clothed in her floral patterned dress and wig. Effeminate and juvenile, Bates signals that one is not born, but rather becomes a mother.

    Joan Crawford inĀ Mommie DearestĀ (1981)


    Maternal villains can reveal some of our underlying anxieties about feminine governance: that it is excessive and compulsive, that women are only maniacal agents of patriarchy. This is true of, for example, the many wives in the Chinese film Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and the adoptive mother in Mommie Dearest (1981). Dark mothers with their own sense of independence risk becoming social pariahs: evil stepmothers, witches, widows, and divorceĆ©s. Hortense Spillers writes in her essay ā€œMamaā€™s Baby, Papaā€™s Maybeā€ that there is perhaps no figure more egregiously denigrated and misrepresented throughout U.S. law than the black woman, or the black mother. A ā€œmatriarchal structureā€ served as the locus of blame for Daniel Moynihanā€™s report on poverty in ā€œthe Negro communityā€ for the U.S. Department of Labor in 1965. Between giving life and facing death, flesh that is property is not given any choice.

    Photo from Buzzfeed

    There is something troublingĀ about the way we traditionally depict mothers, where even celebration seems to only reinforce that she cannot be embraced in her entirety. She is a wife and caretaker rolled into one. Mothers must remain that perfectly uncracked mirror that proves we turned out okay. If we take into consideration the full picture, including the fault lines that form due to withstanding the pressures of motherhood, would we still recognize her as a familiar face? Or is it more likely that even people we have known our whole lives can suddenly become strangers? Motherā€™s Day asks for our critical calculation: to see if familial intimacy is strong enough to survive the fall. Perhaps recognizing the pitfalls of motherhood can be a gift in and of itself; in other words, give mom a break from the heavy maintenance of conforming to impossible standards. Mommy wants, mommy needs!


    Something About The Weather with James Chrzan

    Editorial
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    In this episodeĀ of Special Special Shopping Network, James Chrzan reflects on accumulation as it relates to time, precipitation, and experience. Connecting to his earlier video work,Ā I Am Trying to Fill The Well (2020), Chrzan provides the enigmatic voiceover for what looks like a cloudy day in New York.

    Shop James Chrzan'sĀ Hygrothermograph DrawingsĀ at Special Special. The edition of 82 drawingsĀ were produced on a custom chart paper during the group exhibition Artistsā€™ Tools. Each drawing marks a time from the exhibition opening onward. To purchase an edition from a specific date range, please emailĀ info@specialspecial.com.

    James Chrzan, Hygrothermograph DrawingJames Chrzan, Hygrothermograph DrawingJames Chrzan, Hygrothermograph Drawing


    Ceramic Vessel Sale on Flushing's Main Street

    Editorial
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    One Sunday afternoon, Lu Zhang sets up her ceramic stand on Flushing Main Street to sell alongside outdoor vendors selling toilet paper, fish, hotpot pots, and antiques. The video swings between online and offline sales strategies, combining documentary and found footage from Estar TV and IGTV. The original soundtrack draws from online celebrity influencer Li Jiaqiā€™s (ęŽä½³ē¦) Taobao livestreams. Produced and edited by Lu Zhang for Special Special Shopping Network.

    Lu Zhang Sells Ceramic Vessels on Flushing's Main Street

    Lu Zhang sells ceramic vessels on Flushing's Main Street

    Herb Tam, Curator at Museum of Chinese in America, films Lu Zhang.

    Lu Zhang's Vessels!

    Lu Zhang sells ceramic vessels on Flushing's Main Street

    Shop Vessels by Lu Zhang.


    Order Now! Art of the Infomercial by Danie Wu

    Editorial
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    Shamwow

    Most American children of the 1990s will recall with fondness how chirpy TV commercials colored everyday life. When I was still too young to know better, I wished for a credit card purely to splurge on all the colorful deals emanating from the TV aglow at night. This was back when these cathode ray machines took up the majority of the living room with their ostentatious cabinetry, replacing the hearth as the center of family gathering. For a lower-income householdĀ especially, who could not afford fancy services to fast-forward through broadcasted content, commercials became a source for jokes at school and comforting background murmur during weekend sleepovers. National memory hinged upon the TV commercial, particularly crescendoing around the annual Superbowl. I never did buy anything that I was advertisedā€”those desires sublimatedā€”but for advertisers, simply appearing in a commercial probably fulfilled more than just sales. It gave them their moment in the sun.Ā 

    Generally ranging from thirty seconds to two minutes, these micro-theater performances taught me the art of persuasion. Infomercials typically began with heightened sensitivity to a problem that you never knew you had: carpet stains or bored children. Sometimes the producer decides to desaturate these scenes, to make more traditional practices like using paper towels or painting with watercolor seem ancient. At the cinematic climax, they introduce a convenient modern solution that would save both time and money. The third act concludes with an irresistibly sweetened deal to sway even the most closed of hearts. It was the promise of a good life that usually cost little more than an hourā€™s wage. Who could refuse something like that? But wait! Order now, and youā€™ll get twice the satisfaction.

    Rainbow Art

    Writer and scholar Sianne Ngai defines a gimmick as ā€œoverrated devices that strike us as working too little (labor-saving tricks) but also as working too hard (strained efforts to get our attention).ā€ Gimmicks are ubiquitous objects that at once promise to change your life and yet, in negligible ways. Studying the aesthetic of the gimmick can reveal the qualitative realities of living in late capitalism: prismatic candy colors, unornamented sans serif fonts, and a charismatic, somewhat macho, usually white, host. A more recent reality show, Shark Tank, reveals what the gimmick promises their inventors. Each episode features several different creators who pitch a prototype to a board of deep-pocketed investors. The lucky ones snag a million dollar deal. To many who volunteer to appear, it seems worth the risk of what happens to the losers, which is public humiliation on national television.

    One of my favorite gimmicky infomercials was the Magical Rainbow Sponge, created by a woman of grandmotherly warmth, Dee Gruenig. Looking back now, we might realize with clarity that the art kit was nothing more than a high-density sponge and ink. Gruenigā€™s exuberance comes across as overly hyper and bright, like a race car zooming through a brightly lit tunnel. But in a childā€™s eyes, money was like water needing to be spent on color, sensation, and distinction. Imagine owning a plaything that no one else has. Imagine being admired as much as the world admired Dee Gruenig. Lucky for my parents, children have short attention spans. Before I could dote for long upon a glorified sponge, the next commercial played. Seared into my memory areĀ the Snuggieā„¢ (a blanket with sleeves!) and the FlavorQuick Popcorn Popperā„¢ (a bowl designed exclusively for popcorn!).

    Snuggie

    FlavorQuick Popcorn Popper

    The history of avant garde art is often told as artists subverting or competing against dominant media, such as whatever premiered on television. We think of, for example, Andy Warhol eating a hamburger in 1981 or Chris Burdenā€™s bizarre late-night invasions into the unconquered 1970s airwaves. The global pandemic accelerated a change in high artā€™s aversion to low art tactics: Art Basel launched online viewing rooms, and blue chip art galleries broadcasted virtual tours through Instagram. Desperation drives even the stiffest upper lips to embrace what they have spent their whole lives defining themselves against. High art is what they think they are; low art is what theyā€™d rather not be. After wrapping up filming a virtual flower arranging workshop at Special Special, Mackenzie Younger remarked, ā€œI felt like I was on QVC.ā€ Art needs to sell in order to survive. So why pretend that we are any different from home shopping networks? And so, our subsequent exhibition Special Special Shopping Network was born.

    Aria McManus demonstrates Towelkiniā„¢ onĀ Special Special Shopping Network

    Luxury design, too, has adopted 1990s and early aughts nostalgia for the infomercial. There is perhaps no other body more scrutinized by consumer culture than a womanā€™s, which makes Kim Kardashian Westā€™s shapewear line Skims the perfect antidote for invented ailments, diagnosing every bump and crease as a pathology that can be smoothed out into a seamless hourglass silhouette. Her own celebrity persona follows the trajectory of the gimmick: at first a laughingstock, even reviled (stop making stupid people famous!), her sheer prolificness has leveraged her eventual induction to the pop culture hall of fame. Not bad for a girl with no talent.

    Kardashian West, whose meteoric rise and billion-dollar empire has capitalized on her own campiness, leaned into this commercial aesthetic with her Skims campaign. In the golden era of indie brands with perfumey marketing campaigns, Skims stood out by reverting to the corporatized infomercial format. However, as Darcie Wilder observed, what made her brand appealing was not so much its self-aware exaggerated artifice as it was its enduring sentimentality. It was not only an homage to a bygone era, but to her mother Kris Jennerā€™s own endeavors in selling everything from candles to stair climber equipment through the TV. Skims presented a portrait of womanhood painted with whimsical dollhouse girlishness. I was watching these ads through the gauzy veil of my childhood home, once again spread out on the beige wall-to-wall carpet and flipping through the five channels available to me. I wanted to believe again that all my problems could be resolved with just a quick phone call.

    SKIMS

    Commercials were once something that we thought could be tuned out, turned off, or skipped by changing the channel. Now, self-advertisement is a staple of daily life and even the very foundations for relationships and careers to survive. Although this reality implies that we are all now relegated to living inside our own infomercials, subsumed by cycles of endless self-promotion and self-abasement, perhaps we can cheer for each other even when we present something that particularly fails. A Flop era, or the day our bodies reached a critical exhaustion, would be considered the height of our youth. Hito Steyerl defended the poor image as a product of being well-loved. If the world ran on terms of endearment rather than cash, we would all aspire to be remembered through degraded yet glittery images, with fewer crisp edges and more self-effacement.


    Towelkiniā„¢ on Special Special Shopping Network

    Editorial
    ,

    In this edition of Special Special Shopping Network, Aria McManus, inventor of the Towelkiniā„¢, demonstrates how her product is fashioned on her trusty long-time model Marjorie.Ā 


    Shop the Special Special Edition Towelkiniā„¢ at Special Special in both adult and mini sizes. Also available in Athletic Gold, Lime Green, and Hot Pink.


    Staff Picks for New Books In Stock

    Editorial
    ,

    This month, weā€™re sharing staff picks from the new @3standardstoppage books at the shop.

    Ā 


    TTP
    by Hayahisa TomiyasuĀ 

    As somebody who likes to photograph the same subject over many years and through many of lifeā€™s transitions, I naturally gravitated toward the photography book TTP by Hayahisa Tomiyasu. This book simply chronicles one Ping Pong table in a Berlin park over many seasons. Every page is a photograph of that one table from the same angle, observing how it is used for purposes other than its original intention: a class gathering, a baby getting a diaper change, kids sheltering from the rain, an illicit nighttime activity. Page after page, a growing empathy ensues for this passive tableā€™s appropriated use, while the table is also a witness to the richness of life that it attracts. The table symbolizes an anthropological artifact of our collective experience through life. And as with life, in the last image, the table gets removed. This is a complete portrait of one life, and naturally, a satisfying photography book.Ā 

    ā€”Wen-You Cai

    Ā 

    La BĆŖte by Yasmina Benabderrahmane

    An exploration of displacement through a phenomenological lens, Yasmina Benabderrahmaneā€™s La BĆŖte features photos of the lived, on-the-ground experience of her family in Morocco as well as the earth as its own subject. There are close-ups of hands and feet as well as sand, rocks, and other materialities central to the North African landscape. The hyperfocus on these imagined and embodiedĀ ā€œrootsā€ are contrasted by written passages throughout the book describingĀ ā€œThe Beastā€ of modern development, which erects cultural institutional structuresĀ ā€œwhen the immense majority of Moroccans canā€™t even afford the entrance feeā€. If, like me, you are also born to immigrant parents who talk about the homeland that youā€™ve never been to, consider perusing the ethereally macro photos in this book.

    ā€”DJ Hanouni

    Ā 

    Wild Design / 野ē”Ÿč®¾č®” by é»„ę²³å±±

    Wild Design / 野ē”Ÿč®¾č®” is a compilation of designs that the author sourced from Chinaā€™s urban-rural fringe, a place that is often overlooked or deemed as tacky. I appreciate how the book pairs images of unauthorized flyers found on telephone poles and makeshift outdoor furniture with the author/researcherā€™s handwritten notes, distilling principles of font choice, content creation, profit-making, and information-output underlying theseĀ ā€œwild designsā€. If you are interested in finding beauty and design in the everyday and would like to dismantle the hierarchy of aesthetics dictated by corporations and art institutions, get this book immediately!!Ā 

    ā€”Banyi Huang

    Ā 

    No Country for Canine by Wu Chuan-Lun

    If you appreciated John Bergerā€™s famous essay, ā€œWhy Look at Animals?ā€ or Donna Harawayā€™s observations on human-animal hybrid life, you might find a kindred spirit in artist Wu Chuan-Lun, who unleashes us on a similar journey in No Country for Canine. Essays, for example, explore how the German Shepherd signalled racial purity for Nazis and was Adolf Hitlerā€™s preferred breed. Photographs illustrate the precarious, moldable identity of this descendant of wolves. Given that pet adoptions spiked during the global pandemic, now is an opportune time to re-examine the mysterious ways that master and thing shape each other.

    ā€”Danie Wu

    Ā 

    404 Not Found by Li Yang

    This very personal photo book has a fascinating story. Itā€™s set in a now-deserted former Chinese nuclear base town in the Gobi desert where the photographer spent the first 19 years of his life. Having always wanted to leave as a kid, he goes back after itā€™s been largely deserted with a sense of nostalgia for the simplicity and intimacy of that community. The sepia tone photos are strange and beautiful and I also particularly enjoy the rich printing quality.

    ā€”Jenny Lai

    Ā 

    Art, Engagement, Economy by Caroline Woolard

    American artist and organizer Caroline Woolardā€™s Art, Engagement, Economy is a transparent reflection that lifts the veil on the inner workings of Woolardā€™s practice, from budgets, to fabrication, and correspondences. Caroline encourages a consideration of exchange in all aspects of making.

    ā€”Mark Foss


    An Aperture into
    Special Special Studio
    with Mark Foss by Banyi Huang

    Editorial
    ,

    Let us take a deeper look at two of Special Specialā€™s newest in-house designs, the Cardan Grille Bookmark and Small Medium Big Ideas Notebook Set, for a glimpse into the studio, demystifying the process of conceptualization and design.

    Both stationery sets were proposed and designed by our graphic designer Mark Foss.Ā He first came across the cardan grille in Amy Suo Wuā€™s book A Cookbook of Invisible Writing (available as part of 3standardstoppageā€™s popup at Special Special). In her book, Suo presents her research on forms of analog steganographyā€”a type of secret writingā€”and explores how they can be employed to evade surveillance and control.Ā 

    The cardan grille dates back to 1550, when Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano proposed using a rectangular stencil with various irregularly placed apertures to write a message. The message would then be disguised by filling in the gaps between the fragments with additional words. It calls to mind Edgar Allen Poeā€™s short story The Purloined Letter, in which the villain obtains a letter from the Queen's lover and blackmails her, concealing the letter by folding it in an opposite direction and hanging it from a card rack in the entryway, a most conspicuous yet unexpected place. Similarly, the ingenuity of the encoded message is that it hides in plain sight.


    Image from Wikipedia

    Special Specialā€™s design takes the cardan grilleā€™s steganographic function and infuses it with a sense of discovery. In bookmark form, it encourages the reader to try to find hidden poetry and connections in pre-existing texts. In essence, it both conceals and reveals, adding new functions to an invention that dates back hundreds of years.

    Also embedded in the design is an encouragement to be more intentional behind communication, sharing, and intimacy. It is an incredibly personal and even romantic act to give someone the only key to decipher an encoded message. Mark sees this exchange of encryption and decryption asĀ ā€œsharing the same language.ā€

    Relatedly, the idea for the Small Medium Big Ideas Notebook Set stems from a joke among Special Special team members. Why is there a hierarchy between big and small ideas? How do you define what is big and what is small? How would the joke translate into the form of a product design? Hence the concept for a set of small, medium, and big notebooks that serve different needs was born.

    The meticulous way in which these notebooks are nested together as a set reflects the intertwined nature of ideas as they develop and evolve. Perhaps we can refer to the Latin phraseĀ ā€œomne trium perfectumā€ (good things come in threes) to convey the rule of threeā€”the principle that a trio of events, characters, or objects can create a rhythm that is more satisfying. Among the three notebooks, which one would be the best fit for Goldilocks? The small notebook could be carried in your pocket on the train, whereas the medium size could be used in a meeting. The large one, then, could be used to elaborate on these transitory ideas as you lounge around at home.

    With these designs and the aperture that they provide, we can always return to Special Specialā€™s emphasis on the intersection between art, functionality, and care. As it becomes difficult to sustain our focus in this attention economy, Special Specialā€™s designs offer tactility and playfulness, encouraging us to slow down and be curious at moments when we are usually not.Ā 


    Selling Out or Sold Out?:
    Yuchen Chang and Yi Xin Tong
    by Wen-You Cai

    Editorial
    ,

    What happens when you pit artists with different understanding of art, media, and commerce against each other, and have them sell each otherā€™s work on Special Special Shopping Network?

    Special Special Shopping Network hosts a series of videos where artists market art editions in their own style and understanding of self-promotion and marketing. As each person has a unique take on commerce, we invited them to take this opportunity to record a video in a manner that is authentic to how they would approach making an advertisement. It can be a performance that captures alter egos. Some will have one personality when they make art, but manifest an alter ego when they sell art. We were curious about how people express themselves using the language of marketing, and also sought this as an opportunity for Special Special to consider marketing as an artistic framework that is flush with contradictions. For example, the overt, lofi message to buy can sometimes deter customers from making a purchase. And sometimes feigning that things are not for sale, or unavailability, can make a purchase more enticing.

    We first approached Yuchen Chang, artist, bookbinder, creator of @use_value, and also an artist featured in Tie Me Up Lock Me Down, a previous exhibition at Special Special. She told us, ā€œItā€™s like confronting the constant pressure of capitalizing your personal narrative or even body parts, and try to own it, try to do it in an honest way.ā€ We knew to some extent that different personalities would lead to different outcomes, but we were still delightfully surprised when we received the artistsā€™ manifestations of our prompt.

    Yuchen Chang in Tie Me Up Lock Me Down, Special Special, 2019.

    To coincide with our first time participating in Printed Matter Art Book Fair, we launched two videos by Yi Xin Tong and Yuchen Chang on their publications with Gong Press, an art book publisher based in New York and Beijing. The first, ā€œTen Night Night Night Night of Dreams,ā€ is a video by Yi Xin Tong on Yuchen Changā€™s text-and-audio publication Ten Nights of Dreams (2018). Yi Xin delicately unravels and handles the scroll of the publication while humming Night Night Night Night by Chyi Chin, a popular chinese song from over two decades ago. In the second video, ā€œI got a publication by Yi Xin Tong,ā€ Yuchen Chang methodically and meticulously unboxes each component of Yi Xinā€™s publication, NYC Fishing Journal (2019). Throughout the video, Yuchen makes acute observations of the content and reveals to the audience what she knows about the artist, including his love of watches.

    Over the years the pair have come to know each other through periodically bumping into one another at parties and artist residencies. They each worked with Gong Press to make unconventional book objects for the publisher's first two publications. As Special Special is also an unconventional art space that produces accessible and functional art editions, Gong Pressā€™s mission felt appropriately aligned with ours. Special Special has carried their publications since 2019, when we hosted Yi Xinā€™s NYC Fishing Workshop as part of his publication launch on the hottest day of the summer (so happens that our air conditioner broke that day).

    Yi Xin Tong hosts a fishing workshop at Special Special.

    In late January, Qianfan Gu, publisher of Gong Press, and I, along with our trusty Wildman Claborator and artist, Lu Zhang, approached the artists via Zoom to propose that they market their publications as a kind of performance art for Special Special Shopping Network. Yi Xin and Yuchen approached it with opposing perspectives. Yi Xin immediately said, ā€œWe canā€™t perform selling very well as artists.ā€ Meanwhile, Yuchen was more optimistic about the prospect of marketing through digital platforms, having made marketing videos at the bookstore Printed Matter that have yielded profitable results. For every video, Yuchen would write a script and perform in front of the camera to appear as though she was improvising in front of her audience across Instagram and Youtube.

    As our call continued, we learned that the two artistā€™s perspectives couldnā€™t have differed more:

    Yi Xin Tong: From the visual perspective, art doesnā€™t seem like it can compete with contemporary media.

    Yuchen Chang: I canā€™t stand what you are saying, Yi Xin. Do you really believe that art is segregated from everything else in the world? Do you believe art is not a product? Do you believe that art is not a performance? I donā€™t know what you think is shocking, maybe because you are too separated from society, thatā€™s just the way things work. Advertisements are selling stories, feelings, imagination. Advertisements come from art. All ads today emulate Wong Kar Wai. All ads stem from art from 20-30 years ago. Hasnā€™t it always been like this? So do you think when you make art you are doing something separate from anything else?

    YXT: Not necessarily, art comes from a study of mainstream media.

    YC: I donā€™t believe the separation of art and mainstream media. On my way to work I consume the ads at the train station. I think Special Special is a good example of not segregating between art and commerce.

    YXT: I donā€™t think that art and commerce is separate. I think that there is a separation between art and mainstream media.

    And subsequently Yuchen proposed to Yi Xin, ā€œHow about you promote my publication? And I promote your publication?ā€ And Yi Xin agreed to making a video for Yuchen, and later added that the business of making marketing videos was an ā€œunchartered territory.ā€

    To bring it full circle, we share our assignment for Yuchen and Yi Xin. Will performing for the sake of selling result in sales, even if some artists claim to be allergic to this process? What kind of contradictions are embedded within the process of making without a desire to sell? In any case, we are happy they were able to come up with clever ways to present each otherā€™s publication that reveal their deep understanding of what the other expressed through the work. Afterall, we are a creative and collaborative platform always seeking to express ourselves in unconventional, yet sincere ways.Ā 


    Chinese New Year Predictions for Your Sign by DJ Hanouni

    Editorial
    ,

    As we enterĀ the year of the Metal Ox, readĀ on to see what 2021 has in store for your Chinese Zodiac sign. Featuring the Deck of Character.Ā 

    1) Ox

    How your year will go: Bed

    Last year you spent time perfecting and cleaning up your personal routines, your home, and your foundations. This year you are meant to continue building on this support system, but also to look back and notice how much you have actually accomplished by allowing yourself to show up and commit to something. Where can you cut yourself more slack and give yourself more credit?

    Advice card: Sunken Ship

    Leave the past in the past. Sunken Ship is signaling for you to make one last goodbye and unearth the parts of you that hold you back and no longer serve any purpose for your wellbeing. Doing so will open up more space for your brand new beginning.

    Ā 

    2) TigerĀ 

    How your year will go: Ocean

    Your creativity is in full flow at the moment. Youā€™re receiving all kinds of messages and inspirations. This year brings an opportunity to expand on your creative practices by further exploring your inner self, reaching depths you werenā€™t able to before. What have you noticed helps you navigate into the deeper parts of yourself?

    Advice card: Moon

    The moon card is a call to the emotional inner self and the subconscious. Emotions are as physical as they are mental, so pay attention to how you feel in your body when experiencing any intense feelings or revisiting the past. Even when we block something out in our minds, it is always felt in the body. How can you better balance your caretaking to be less about thinking and more about being physically present with yourself?

    Ā 

    3) Rabbit

    How your year will go: Gold Mine

    Abundance, abundance galore! This is the year of truly discovering yourself and your passions, bringing in rewards of all kinds. If thereā€™s something youā€™ve felt pulled to start doing, this card is telling you to go full steam ahead. Try new things and see how they make you feel. If it gets you excited, then youā€™re on the right track.

    Advice card: Dancing Shoes

    Your intuition is crucial during this time. Follow it to find your path and show up to every new approach with enthusiasm and ease. Now is definitely not the time to be self-critical, but to practice the art of simply being, witnessing and enjoying. What areas of your life can you relinquish a little more control and allow yourself to enjoy the experience?

    Ā 

    4) DragonĀ 

    How your year will go: Band-aid

    This is a year of major healing for you. Take your time to expose buried wounds that have needed airing out for a long time. Before an injury can be covered to repair itself, it must first be tended to and properly sanitized. This is an ongoing process but this year will point your attention towards any deep-seated pain that has yet to be addressed.

    Advice card: Candle

    Although this yearā€™s forecast seems a bit heavy, candle appears to remind you that the universe is on your side supporting you to make these changes and heal. You are being guided by benevolent energy, so donā€™t feel overwhelmed! How can you integrate slowing down into your daily routine/practice?

    Ā 

    5) Snake

    How your year will go: Maze

    This year may feel like youā€™re lost or going in circles: trying again and again only to end up at the same place or conclusion. You will be pushed to think outside of the box to confront issues head-on to solve them once and for all. Try all possibilities, especially if they seem like they would not be fruitfulā€“sometimes these are the solutions that work the best.Ā 

    Advice card: Bulldozer

    Stop making rules for yourself in how to approach something. Itā€™s time to carve new paths and destroy the previous method of doing things. Give yourself permission to have a brand new start. What would that look like? What previously unconsidered methods could you try to help your life run more smoothly?

    Ā 

    6) Horse

    How your year will go: Spatula

    This year will test you to change your perspective on something. There may be some stubborn energy around this change as you donā€™t want to contradict your previously-held beliefs, but this is for the better. If this is related to a relationship of any kind, try seeing things from their point of view. By understanding a situation from all sides, it allows you to remove your own personal bias and gives you more freedom. Nothing in this life is fixed, so give yourself permission to change your mind.

    Advice card: Shield

    You are being divinely protected and asked to do the same for yourself in the physical plane. If you always feel overwhelmed by others or like youā€™re always sacrificing yourself, itā€™s time to set some boundaries. Doing so can make you feel guilty at first, but thatā€™s only because youā€™re not used to prioritizing yourself. What new definitions of boundaries (self-protection, helping you be a better you so you can better serve others) can help you flip your perspective to see how necessary and good they are?

    Ā 

    7) Goat

    How your year will go: Knight

    This year will demand you to stand up for yourself. Up until now, you may have been playing smallā€“whether you realize it or not. Taking up space is imperative here. Whatever conflict may come up, donā€™t be afraid as these are chances for you to practice advocating for yourself. Even if someone else does it for you, it does not carry the same weight when you recognize for yourself what isnā€™t working and what crosses your lines.

    Advice card: Wrestling Ring

    Donā€™t run away from this yearā€™s challenges. Stand your ground firmly and know that these moments are meant to help you expand and become the person you were always meant to be. This card is about showing up and channeling your inner strength, which is already half the battle. What or who do you need to confront in order to take better care of yourself?

    Ā 

    8) Monkey

    How your year will go: Magnet

    You are being attracted towards many opportunities right now, and vice versa. There will be plenty to pick and choose from, so do not jump the gun and run with the first thing that gets presented to you and sounds good. Read the fine print on everything and remember that because something wants you, doesnā€™t mean that you have to want it back. Be mindful about what kind of energies you want to bring into your life.

    Advice card: Leap

    This is quite literally a ā€œleap of faithā€ card. With an abundance of opportunities surrounding you, itā€™s always a risk to take one on and not know if it will work out. Let your intuition guide you here and go with what you feel the most passionate about. What fears can you replace with faith and excitement of what is to come?

    Ā 

    9) Rooster

    How your year will go: Island

    You may feel pulled or encouraged to work on yourself solo. This is a great time to start any inner work, whether itā€™s meditation or therapy or even buying a self-help book. Things that can only be examined and accomplished by you and you alone. Of course you can reach out to others for support, but only you can do the work.

    Advice card: Thief

    Stop stealing your own joy! Working on yourself is a life-long process and one that doesnā€™t need to be so grueling. Remember to reward yourself for even the smallest accomplishments, and stop taking away your own credit. In what ways can you count on yourself in order to help rebuild self-trust?

    Ā 

    10) Dog

    How your year will go: Weirdo

    Itā€™s time to embrace your weird side, what makes you unique, and what helps you stand out. How can you recontextualize your weirdness as a gift rather than a curse? This year is calling you to be or return to your most authentic self and to witness how much freedom that brings you. Only when you are yourself can you bring in like-minded energy into your life, and you deserve that.

    Advice card: Sprout

    This year will be essential in relation to your personal growth! Youā€™re only at the very start of a new beginning so donā€™t expect to be a master right away, but remember practice makes perfect.Ā  Feel confident in your abilities and get excited about where this may take you!

    Ā 

    11) Pig

    How your year will go: Crystal

    This year will lead you to discover what makes you unique and how you can use it to serve others. Perhaps you already have a spiritual practice, or just carry some infectiously good energy. How can you bring this positive aspect of you into your daily life? How can you use this to not only benefit yourself but others, and the collective as a whole? Expect lots of clarity and powerful messages popping up, maybe even in your dreams.

    Advice card: Compass

    Listen to your intuition. If it doesnā€™t feel right, itā€™s not for you. The gift you are learning to use this year will help you follow the path necessary in order to fulfill your lifeā€™s calling. The more you can trust yourself, the less you will feel influenced by outside forces so that you can keep making your own path.

    Ā 

    12) Rat

    How your year will go: Jail Cell

    You may feel trapped because of how the pandemic halted your year last year, dear Rat. However, there may be areas in your life which you could drastically improve and expand in this new chapter. In what spaces do you notice yourself minimizing who you are and yourĀ potential?Ā 

    Advice card: Club

    The club card here as advice is a reminder that you are never alone. In 2021, practice reaching out to loved ones more when youā€™re feeling confinedā€“they care about your wellbeing much more than you let yourself think.


    Conflict Remains, Shape for Doubts
    by Lu Zhang

    Editorial
    ,

    Jess T. Chiang, Banyi Huang, Wen-You Cai, Donna M. Mah, Lu ZhangJess T. Chiang, Banyi Huang, Wen-You Cai, Donna M. Mah, and Lu Zhang at Special Special for the occasion of Ben Shu (ęœ¬ęœÆ): Transcultural Healing Through the Elements, 2020.

    When Euripides commented on the decline of Greek tragedy, followed by the rise of comedy, he wrote, "the ā€˜publicā€™ is nothing but empty words, and it has absolutely no equal and self-sufficient value. Why should an artist assume the obligation to cater to a power that shows its power only by quantity?" He bemoaned that art is constantly subject to the masses and the market. To what extent should artists consider the audience in the creative process?

    Like a lot of my friends last year, I binge-watched ā€œThe Big Band,ā€ one of Chinaā€™s hottest music reality television shows, to entertain myself during the long hours in quarantine. The TV show was a nostalgic retrospective of modern Chinese rock and pop music that featured obscure, washed-up, or defunct bands who would compete for votes from a live audience. In the season finale, two bands with opposing energies remained. One band, Re-Tros, has an experimental electronica sound that oscillates between Post Punk and New Wave, informed by band leader Hua Dongā€™s many years living abroad in Germany. They sing in English with a robotic cadence, matching the musicā€™s sharp angularity. The other finalist, Wu Tiao Ren, maintains roots in Chinese folk and blues-y storytelling, often singing in the regional dialect of their hometown, Haifeng. Their deceptively simple verse structures are accompanied at times by accordion and acoustic guitar and centers the poetic humor in everyday life. Wu Tiao Ren draws inspiration from migrant worker social surroundings, and seems to thrive from unlikely collaborations.Ā 

    Wu Tiao Ren on ā€œThe Big Band.ā€ Image via Youtube.

    My younger self would have identified with Re-Trosā€™s rigorous intellectualism, as I used to be someone who disregarded public approval and comprehension in the process of making artwork. Soon, I realized that the value of art is all subjective and financially dependent on a few gatekeepers. I went into a dark hole questioning whether art matters, and to whom, until I learned about the work of socially engaged artists who created unfixed relationships between their work and the audience such as Gordon Matta-Clarkā€™s artist-run restaurant, FOOD (1972); Rikrit Tiravianija serving pad thai (1990) in an art gallery; and Tino Sehgalā€™s This Progress (2006), in which visitors were invited to engage in conversations with docent performers about the idea of progress as they walked up the Guggenheim Museumā€™s ramp.

    I began wanting to make art that looks into forms of social relationships to counteract the traditional dynamics between artist, artwork and audience. Instead of placing the artwork and the artist at the center of the audienceā€™s gaze, I sought to create situations in which peopleā€™s experiences and interactions with each other were the focus.

    Aria McManus and Lu Zhang on a Pool Date, 2017. Special Special.

    Wildman Clab was founded in 2017 with its inaugural work, Boat Date: It Takes Ten Years Practice to be on the Same Boat, where I created a platform for blind dates on a Chinese river boat installation during a residency at NARS Foundation in Brooklyn. People met on ā€œdatesā€ by signing up for one-hour time slots, not knowing who signed up to meet them. In my eyes, participants were matched through the Chinese concept of yuĆ”nfĆØn (ē¼˜åˆ†), in which one's good deeds in past lives lead to the "fateful coincidence" of meeting another person in this current life. The event was restaged as a "Pool Date" as a part of Special Special's summer group show SPF.

    The word ā€œClabā€ of ā€œWildman Clabā€ is a combination of the words ā€œclubā€ and ā€œlabā€, which each uniquely evoke spaces of study, research, experimentation, amateurism, and community. Social oddness defines the ā€œWild,ā€ which can be understood as primitive, ancient or simply Asian. The work exists in the social engagement of the clabā€™s collaborators, audiences, and their experiences. Through its various projects, Wildman Clab questions what can be considered normal or civilized as defined by a Western centric world view.

    Handle with Poetic Care, 2018. Special Special.

    In 2018, Wildman Clab was invited to be in-residence temporarily at Special Special after organizing Handle with Poetic Care, a poetry swap and live reading where everyone came dressed in masks. Since then, the Wildman Clab Manifesto has been realized through its Frontiers Conferences, which are a series of performances, poetry readings and workshops, sometimes in conversation with exhibiting artists, that have explored vulnerability, language, and marginalization, among other themes.

    The Frontiers Conference Ben Shu (ęœ¬ęœÆ): Transcultural Healing Through the Elements at Special Special was a result of a conversation that Banyi and I had at the end of last year. Banyi mentioned wanting to straighten out the blockages in her body and mind, and excavate our past self and future selves. We talked more about collective anxiety and social fears. Could a performance/event help us and others?

    Ben Shu (ęœ¬ęœÆ), or ā€œroot practiceā€, included a somatic exploration of Zhu You Shu (ē„ē”±ęœÆ), an ancient healing process that involved praying to the origin of a disease by speaking directly to the spirits. It consisted of a short reading, demonstration of verbal and gestural incantations, and a discussion among the five collaborators who organized the event: Donna M. Mah, Jess T. Chiang, Banyi Huang, Wen-You Cai, and me.


    Watch the full Frontiers Conference
    Ben Shu (ęœ¬ęœÆ): Transcultural Healing Through the Elements.

    During a planning meeting on zoom, Donna, an acupuncturist and Chinese medicine educator, suggested that the five of us could represent the five elements of Chinese metaphysics (fire, wood, water, earth and metal). As we discussed how to describe the program, Donna was very conscious about the word performance, which she considered self-serving and lacking educational intent. She preferred to call it a workshop, which would offer something practical to the audience.

    Through this semantic discussion, I realized that even though Frontiers Conferences was created to be accessible to its participants, Donna made me realize that I believe, most of all, that art making doesnā€™t have to be fixed, resolved, or offer a conclusion. Sometimes itā€™s about the process itself. Just like during the Ben Shu program, I was hesitant about writing the incantation referenced in the Zhu You Shu text knowing that I am not an expert practitioner, but I was still willing to share my exploration process.Ā 

    Lu Zhang writing the incantation referenced in the Zhu You Shu text.

    True to Special Specialā€™s mission, I created Wildman Clab to reconcile my own conflicts about art making and accessibility. Each Frontiers Conference is like writing a poem that resists a center-margin divide, disrupts how market-driven art tends to be, and allows for chance rather than scripting what is supposed to be seen or experienced as art. According to Lauren Berlant, ā€œGiving shape is not the same as solving the problem of crisis, or having the right emotions about it. Indeed, two poems confront a tone- an atmosphere, feeling, sense of flatness in the world.ā€1 At this moment, I still donā€™t have concrete answers to all the questions Wildman Clab has asked me, but it has allowed me to give shape to my doubts.

    Ā 


    1. [Lauren Berlant, Thinking About Feeling Historical, University of Chicago, August, 2008.]ā†©


    Special Special Guide to the Lunar New Year

    Editorial
    ,
    In anticipation of the Lunar New Year on February 12, pick up a set of red pocket envelopes designed by Special Special to gift and celebrate the year of the Metal Ox! For more inspiration on how to ring in the New Year the Special Special way, consult our auspicious gift guide.

    Audiovisual Care: Sounds of Late Summer by DJ Hanouni

    Editorial
    ,

    Ā The multi-sensorial effect of music and art, paired together, allows us to shift in and out of our overwhelming reality. When I joined the team and mentioned my side gig as DJ Hanouni, it was only natural that I create a mix for Special Special. I worked with our Designer and music aficionado Mark Foss to create Special Specialā€™s first DJ mix, which was born out of his own pastime creating a themed Spotify playlist for every show. Having our exhibition Late Summer by Benjamin Langford as inspiration made for a colorful and fruitful collaboration.

    In the Special Special spirit of fresh ideas, collaboration, and intersecting art with the everyday, I wanted this mix to enhance the playful essence of the show as something people can carry with them to remind them of Late Summer; that was only a click away. The Late Summer-inspired playlist Mark created was full of different genres, styles and eras, which brought up a fun challenge for me and re-ignited my passion for creative DJing that had gone a bit stale during quarantine. For example, older songs that are not mixed digitally are much harder to sync to newer ones because the tempo is off or itā€™s slightly out of tune, so mixing with your ears rather than eyes is key. Melding genres is one of my specialities; it surprises the listener by refreshing old classics and much like the intersection of music and art, elevates the unique sound of both tracks. All the ā€œFlowers (Lone Remix)ā€ by Bibio with ā€œPerfumed Gardenā€ by The RAH Band is one of my favorite blends in the mix for this reason, as well as the two intro songs.

    AnaĆÆs (a.k.a. DJ Hanouni) admiring Benjamin Langford'sĀ Burnt Fiddleleaf

    When I began DJing a few years ago I quickly learned that itā€™s a skill that takes so much more practice and discipline. Not only is it about beat matching in real time, but about creating a feeling, trying to predict how the audience will respond, making sure the songs sound right together, and being able to do it on the fly. Itā€™s really centered on curating an experience, and in this case, one to accompany viewing (in any context) Langfordā€™s whimsically ethereal soft sculpture plants.

    The preparation that goes into an audio mix is no simple feat. I use our Special Special edition Small Medium Big Ideas Notebook Set to organize my thoughts, because they tend to get messy if theyā€™re all in the same place. My own process begins with choosing a list of songs to useā€“ these go in the small notebook. Then, I decide which songs have similar keys and which songs complement each other the most, so these potential blends organized by BPM and/or key are written down in the medium notebook. A blend might seem like itā€™ll sound good on paper until you get down to testing it out on the turntables. Some songs that are both beautiful become a trainwreck together, so itā€™s always best to hear how their combination works out in reality.Ā  Once I listen to how they flow from beginning to end and tweak the mix to my liking, I use the big notebook for my final organized lists of each mix and instructions on how to play each song.

    As the Late Summer exhibition relates to a period of intensity and scarcity circling back to the same dire themes that came to a head this year, this sound piece is a surrogate for taking a deep breath, relaxing back into yourself, and reaching a point of intuitive introspection. It begins smooth and easy, then reaches a higher BPM towards the end for danceable listening.

    Benjamin Langford, Yellow Schefflera (above) and Sweet Potato Vine (below) from the exhibition Late Summer (2020), Special Special, New York.

    Langfordā€™s work asks us to indulge in themes of process. Photographing plants in a state of decay, the artist both makes their ephemeral nature more permanent and reminds us that nothing is meant to last. Whether itā€™s the stitching on the leaves in Yellow Schefflera or the intricately-cut crevices of Sweet Potato Vine, Langfordā€™s larger-than-life sculptures evince a dedicated, ritualistic kind of preparation, similar to the process of crafting a mix.

    Putting an emphasis on community and care is central to the Special Special ethos, so we offer this auditory experience as a method of self-care available to anyone. Layer it with a nature sound video during a bubble bath, put it on a speaker while relaxing in the park, or stop by the gallery to hear it play in its natural state, alongside Langfordā€™s artworks.


    A Special Special Gift Guide

    Editorial
    ,

    Shop Special Specialā€™s first-ever Holiday Gift Guide for people who are full of contradictions. What do you give the person who has everything? What if gift-giving is their last love language? No matter the occasion, we have a gift for someone who defies categories. Use promo code SPECIALTHANKS for 10% off your entire purchase online and in person through Cyber Monday, November 30, 11:59pm. Donā€™t forget to finish it off with our exclusive gift wrap.

    [[read-more]]

    1) Gifts for the Sequestered Adventurer

    This Land is My Land beach towelĀ 

    Towelkiniā„¢ by Aria McManus

    NYC Fishing Journal by Yi Xin Tong

    Blue Tora-San High Top Japanese Workman's Shoes

    Special Special Charm

    Travel has been sharply restricted, but that doesnā€™t stop many of us from daydreaming of escape. Send your adventurous friend a beach towel or NYC Fishing Journal by Yi Xin Tong to encourage a well-deserved staycation. Dress the whole family in Towelkinis for bathtime. This gift package is for those who arenā€™t going anywhere anytime soon.

    2) Gifts for the Antisocial Entertainer

    Stay As Long As You Like Brass Keychain

    WIFI-POET by Northy Chen

    The Deck of Character

    Martini by Lu Zhang

    Ice Tray by Half-Wet

    Terracotta Candle Bowl by Fredericks and Mae

    Ten Nights of Dreams by Yuchen Chang

    One is the loneliest number, unless it means a cozy night in curled up with an extra large martini served in a ceramic vesselĀ by Lu Zhang and a modern oracle reading from The Deck of Character. You donā€™t need a crowd to justify drawing the curtains and lighting a witchy candle. Singles, only children, and Aquarius suns know: the only one you can fully trust is yourself.

    3) Gifts for the Urban Gardener

    Tubers Planters by Benjamin Langford

    Yellow Columbine wall sculpture by Benjamin LangfordĀ 

    Green Twist Tie Ring by E for Effort

    Steel Toe Green Boots Japanese Workman's Shoes

    Fuji Fuji Fuji Postcards

    If you are just a nature lover in a concrete jungle, this song is for you. Adorn your home with a fabric sculpture by Benjamin Langford or pot a new cutting inside a felt planter. Splash through puddles on the sidewalk with waterproof Japanese Workman boots. Then, visit Special Specialā€™s Plant Residency and Langfordā€™s exhibition Late Summer. If thereā€™s anything that this year taught us, itā€™s that this is the year for houseplants.

    Ā 

    4) Gifts for the Unproductive Writer

    Follow the Rules NotebookĀ 

    Small Medium Big Ideas Notebook Set

    Coaster Painting by Patrick Carlin MohundroĀ 

    Cardan Grille Bookmark and Letter-Writing Set

    Chalk by Fredericks and Mae

    Canā€™t seem to find the right words? Plagued by writersā€™ block? These accessories combined provide some mental gymnastics for the immobilized writer. Maybe itā€™s a matter of reorganizing ideas by their size or making your own rules. Add a resting place for coffee, and your creative energy will be flowing in no time.


    Traces of Late Summer:
    A Conversation Between a Turnip and a Sunchoke

    Online Event
    ,

    We didnā€™t realize a turnip and a sunchoke could have a conversation until Bella Meyer proposed to animate them with a puppet performance using Special Specialā€™s latest edition of Tubers felt planters, produced in collaboration with Benjamin Langford. The performance coincided with Langfordā€™s solo exhibition Late Summer at Special Special, an installation of enlarged sculptural photographs of plants and flowers, which were photographed from around his home and neighborhood during the COVID-19 lockdown.Ā 

    With Bella, Ben, and new and old friends gathered festively together, we also celebrated Special Specialā€™s 4th anniversary, as the audience watched Bellaā€™s performance unfold behind our storefront window from the sidewalk.Ā A wholesome delight celebrating four years of creative collaborations at Special Special, this little video reveals a small fraction of the magic of that day.Ā 

    [[read-more]]

    (Above)Ā Bella Meyer, founder of and florist at FleursBella, stages a performance in Special Specialā€™s storefront

    Tim Simonds first introduced Bella to me as his mother during his solo exhibition, Talks To Me, at our space in 2019. At that time, she was a supportive collector who brought many friends to see her sonā€™s show, and we developed a close friendship. Every time she visited, she carried an exuberant and earthy energy which made sense given her career as a florist and founder of an artistic flower shop near Union Square called FleursBella. This charming oasis in Manhattan is known for its floral installations for art institutions, glamorous events, and restaurants around town.Ā 

    Tim Simonds, left, with his mother Bella Meyer.

    Bella is not only one of our favorite local florists but also a collector of the Hibiscus Hawaiian shirt, a previous edition collaboration with Benjamin Langford. She happened to be back in town from quarantining upstate for the opening of Benā€™s show and showed up wearing her Hibiscus Hawaiian shirt. From outside our space looking into the new exhibition, daring to slip our masks down for a quick sip of prosecco, I asked if she would be interested in demonstrating how to use our latest Tubers planter edition.Ā 

    ā€œHow about a puppet performance?ā€ she asked. She looked at our storefront window and started envisioning stems of fresh and dried flowers slowly accumulating in Benā€™s Turnip and Sunchoke planters; branches building one after another, growing taller and leaning further into each other.

    Tim, who was standing nearby, interjected, ā€œOh, you will love her puppet performances. She used to do them all the time.ā€ Convinced by their creative energy, I believed it was a better vision than my initial proposal to ask her to do a workshop.Ā Ā 

    Bella Meyer, right, with her assistant Leanna.

    An assortment of loose stems and branches prepare for their appearance on stage.

    On the day of the performance, Bella showed up with her two teammates, Leanna and George, buckets of flowers, and a shelf to organize them for the performance. Around the start time at three oā€™clock, friends of Bella and Special Special began to gather, reunited in masks standing outside our space in anticipation for the performance. One of her assistants hit ā€œplayā€ to start a soundtrack of nature sounds, and Bella appeared wearing all black behind the glass, covering her face with a black cloth as well to divert attention from herself as the puppeteer. She began filling the planters with long flower stems. Vibrant flowers in fuschia, mustard, and emerald animated the window of Special Special.Ā 

    Pedestrians and passing cars stopped to peer in, as the bouquets grew taller and taller over the course of the forty minute performance. There were some moments when Bella teased her audience by stepping out from behind the window frame. As the audience started clapping, thinking it signaled the end of the performance, Bella would flick fresh flower petals at us before stepping back into the window frame to continue her arrangements. Everyone was captivated and mesmerized by the luscious assemblage of yarrow, celosia, and bramble.

    Crowds gather to watch Bella Meyerā€™s flower puppet performance at the Special Special storefront.

    Finally, she came out again to throw more flowersā€”this time loose orchid budsā€”and gave a final bow. Then, people stepped inside to see the juxtaposition of the floral arrangements and Benā€™s installation inside our space. The finished display also evoked a sensorium of smells, emitting a fragrance akin to dried tea leaves and a forest floor.Ā 

    Ā Bella throws petals into the crowd.

    The interior of Special Special is transformed into a surreal gardenscape with Benjamin Langfordā€™s sculptures and bouquets by Fleursbella.

    Bella continued to treat each flower tenderly even after the performance was complete. She sprayed hairspray onto dry flowers to keep them perky. Two weeks later when she came to take down the display, she apologized to each stem as she arranged for them to be discarded or recycled for other ornamental displays.Ā 

    Benjamin Langfordā€™s Tubers in varying sizes are available for your own planting and puppeteering needs. Langfordā€™s exhibition Late Summer is on view through December 24, 2020.


    Wen-You Cai
    Founder / Director of Special Special


    Special Special Plant Residency

    Open Call
    ,

    APPLY NOW

    (the application is no longer active, check back on our social media for future plant residencies)

    Beginning Fall 2020,Ā Special Special hosts a residency for plants you associate with another person. This is an artist residency for your plants who embody characters of a person.Ā 

    Ever water your plants and wonder what has happened with the friend that hastily moved away and left the little cactus on your window sill? Reminds you to call your mom when you look at the money tree your parents bought you when you moved into your first apartment after college. Wonder if you will ever run into the ex who helped to pot the pit of an avocado you shared on your morning toast. Has your plant ever been a part of other art exhibitions?

    [[read-more]]

    We want to get to know your plants and help take care of these kindred spirits. You may apply if you want to celebrate them, take a temporary break from the baggage of its association, if the plant needs an alternative energy boost, or if you simply want us to look after your plants while you take a trip out of town.Ā 

    Plants carry the energy of those they are associated with, and sometimes embody a deep personified meaning for the primary caregiver. In a city of 8.6 million, people come and go, and some form lasting bonds through the transfer of plants, even when the human relationship has fleeted. Plants are your low maintenance pets, yet slightly needy roommate, reminding you to get out into the sun every once in the while, and drink ample water.

    The residency will consist of a collection of plants thatĀ the primary caregivers associate with people. The plants will reside at the newly formed plant themed shop at Special Special on a 1 month rotation.Ā 

    During the residency your plant will be living and growing amongst a community of other kindred spirited plants. The team at Special Special will provide regular water as instructed by the primary caregiver, and a diverse array of visitors will provide invaluable critique and creative discourse for the plantsā€™ development.Ā Ā 

    Visitors will get to know your plants at Special Special through the profile and CV attached to the plant. Special Special will provide a platform to spotlight your plant on our website journal and Instagram page.

    Qualifications
    Plants that were gifted
    Plants that were left behind, or never reclaimed
    Plants with a deep association with someone
    Plants that were a part of a creative project, or exhibitions

    Application
    Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Please find the form for submissionĀ here.

    Application inlcudes:
    ā€” Name of plant
    ā€” Type of plant
    ā€” Characteristics, known traits
    ā€” Care instructions
    ā€” CV or known record of residence and exhibition
    ā€” How you acquired the plant
    ā€” Photo of the plant

    Additional Materials
    If selected, we will require the following documentation:
    ā€” Photo of plant at caregiverā€™s location
    ā€” Photo of plant enroute to residency
    ā€” Photo of plant on the first day of residency
    ā€” Photo of plant on its last day of residency

    Information will be entered into a printed profile on view during the residency.

    Plants Looking for New Permanent Homes
    1-2 plants at a time may join the residency in hopes of seeking a new, permanent caretaker. The new caretaker may apply to adopt a plant if they write a qualified statement on why they believe the plant should go home with them.Ā 

    Responsibilities
    Special Special will only be responsible for watering the plant, and its occasional trimming. Any additional requests will only be accepted at our discretion. The residents shall incur no cost to Special Special whatsoever. Upon the end of the residency the owners must collect the plant from our location.Ā 

    Fine Print
    In the interest of ensuring all other plantsā€™ health, safety, and wellbeing during their stay at Special Special, please make sure your plants are not infested with any bugs or endanger other plants. Special Special Productions, LLC. is not liable in the case of poor health or death during its stay at the residency. Special Special Productions, LLC, will do its due diligence to follow the care instructions provided by the caregiver to our best abilities, and notify the caregiver if any negative conditions occur.


    Afternoon Tea & Jam
    Session Volume 2

    Online Event
    ,

    Volume 2 of Afternoon Tea and Jam Sessions streamed live on specialspecial.com on Wednesday, August 19th at 3:00pm EST. Viewers were invited to brew themselves a cup of tea, put their feet up, and tune in!

    [[read-more]]

    Artist Britt Moseley served up sounds and tea via his STP1000: Synthesizer Teapot, with Special Special founder, Wen-You Cai in attendance at Special Special gallery.

    The STP:1000 Synthesizer Teapot is a fully functioning teapot and analog synthesizer. It is capable of playing musical scales and notes or unusual drone sounds. Brittā€™s performance also introduced his auxiliary tablecloth, which influenced the music when cups were placed on its conductive surface. The Synthesizer Teapot was featured in our group show Artistsā€™ Tools.

    Check outĀ Afternoon Tea & Jam Volume 1Ā featuring Britt Moseley, Tiri Kananuruk, and SebastiĆ”n Morales.


    Artistsā€™ Tools Demo:
    Che-Wei Wang Dot Blaster 8000

    Online Event
    ,

    For nearly four years since Special Special opened, the metal gate that comes down overĀ the front doorĀ every evening at closing time, has been left as a blank canvas to the street. This was notĀ the result of a lack ofĀ ideas; perhaps, it was due to an overabundance of them. However, no opportunityĀ seemed a more appropriate occasion to extend the invitation for fresh gate painting than when we heard of Che-Wei Wang's new painting tool.

    [[read-more]]

    The artist was featured in the group exhibition Artistsā€™ Tools (March 12 ā€”August 31, 2020) and makes up one half of CW&T, a Brooklyn based design studio, run by Che-Wei and his partner, Taylor Levy.

    Wang invented the Dot Blaster 8000 tool during COVID-19 quarantine in Spring 2020. Inspired by wheat pasting street artists and the Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara, Wang used prototypes of the tool to paint the date everyday in the streets. Soon, he was creating more complex designs.

    Painted designs produced by the tool, can be pre-programmed by uploading bitmap images with an exact height of eight pixels. One row of pixels for each nozzle. Beyond this, designsĀ are entirely customizable and repeatable.

    The painting process begins with a concoction of acrylic paint and mineral spirits, the classic petroleum-derived clear solvent. Wang funnels the mixture into bags that connect to the Dot Blaster 8000 device. Between colors, Wang must empty the gun completely of the previous color in order to ensure that a pure pigment would be delivered.

    'Taktaktaktaktak!'Ā Wangā€™s Dot Blaster 8000 releases a light rotary sound like the worldā€™s gentlest automatic paintball gun. The sleek, translucent rectangular body holds a straight line of eight small nozzles, hence the ā€œ8000ā€ in the name (according to Wang, a Dot Blaster 16,000 is in the works). Each nozzle is wired to a small, built-in computer that pushes the small blasts of paint out in specific sequences. For painting Special Specialā€™s gate, the gallery collaborated with Wang to test new designs, including the Special Special logo, trademark name, some waves, and little figures. Over the course of an hour, Wang dribbled bands of patterns in green, blue, white, and yellow on the silver gate.

    Along withĀ Wangā€™s partner, Taylor Levy, their two charming sons watched from the sidelines, asking many necessary questions such as, ā€œWhatā€™s the box for?ā€ Upon switching the gunā€™s settings to scrawl ā€œSpecial Special,ā€ one child exclaimed, ā€œA second Special?ā€ After the gate was complete and with enthusiastic encouragement from the audience, Wang progressed onto the sidewalk, discovering that flat horizontal surfaces rendered a more legible pattern. Part performance piece, part action painting, Wangā€™s demonstration of the Dot Blaster 8000 left a lasting mark on Special Special and our imaginations, as we know this will only be the beginning of Dot Blaster!

    Check out our interview with Che-Wei Wang.


    Artistsā€™ Tools Demo:
    Brett Gui Xin

    Online Event
    ,

    Join artist Brett Gui Xin in her Brooklyn home studio as she demonstrates using Wolverine Claw, a tool developed to slice soft plastics into thin strips, which are then knit or woven. Wolverine Claw was featured in the Artistsā€™ Tools exhibition at Special Special, which ran from March 12 - August 31, 2020.

    Check out our interview with Brett Gui Xin.


    Featured Artist:
    Brett Gui Xin

    Interview
    ,

    An interview with artist Brett Gui Xin, hosted by Ellen Bjerborn. Brett Gui Xin repurposes waste materials into art, manipulating them with weaving, heat treatment and mechanical making! In this interview we discuss the Wolverine Claw - her tool in Special Specials exhibition, Artistsā€™ Tools, as well as Brett's art practice and explorations.

    Check out Brett Gui Xin's Wolverine claw demo.


    Featured Artists:
    Tiri Kananuruk & SebastiƔn Morales

    Interview
    ,

    An interview with artists Tiri Kananuruk and SebastiĆ”n Morales, hosted byĀ Jenny Lai, production manager at Special Special. Tiri and SebastiĆ”n created the Dongle Synth 2.0 for the Artistsā€™ Tool show.

    [[read-more]]

    Tiri Kananuruk creates performance art that combines her passion for technological consumerism, machine learning, and language. Tiri is a cofounder of NUUM collective, a group of choreographers, composers, programmers, visual artists and interaction designers committed to a multi-disciplinary approach to creating performance work.

    SebastiƔn Morales is a Mexican artist, engineer, and researcher. He received his bachelors in mechanical engineering and a masters in interactive telecommunications at NYU. He develops interactive works at the intersection of living systems, robotics, and digital culture.

    In April, Tiri and SebastiĆ”n also participated in a synthesizer jam session with another artist featured in our show, Britt Moseley, as part of Special Specialā€™s Together Alone Spring 2020 Virtual Programming. Check out the Dongle Synth 2.0 in action here!


    Featured Arist:
    Winslow Funaki

    Interview
    ,

    An interview with Winslow Funaki, hosted by Weston Wittry, Art Director at Special Special. Winslow's work, Shopping Cart, was featured in the Artists' ToolsĀ exhibition at Special Special, on view from March 12, 2020 - August 31, 2020.

    [[read-more]]

    Funaki is an artist based in Providence, RI. She's received an MFA in Furniture Design from RISD (2020), a BFA in Painting from RISD with a concentration in Art History, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. At the time of this interview she has exhibited in New York, Providence,Ā and Japan.


      Featured Artist:
      Che-Wei Wang

      Interview
      ,



      An interview with Che-Wei Wang, hosted byĀ Ellen Bjerborn, gallery assistant at Special Special. HisĀ Hot Plastic Gun and Carbide RingĀ were featured inĀ the Artists' Tools exhibition.

      [[read-more]]

      Che-Wei is an artist, designer & architect with expertise in computational and generative design, fabrication technologies, electronics, CNC machining, and metal manufacturing. The results range from architecture & sculpture to interactive installations & mobile apps. He is the winner of the 2003 SOM fellowship and the Young Alumni Achievement Award from Pratt Institute. Che-Wei has taught courses on design, time, creative computing, and inflatables, at various institutions. He is an alumnus of MIT Media Lab, ITP at NYU, and Pratt Institute.

      Check out Che-Wei Wang's Dot Blaster 8000 demo.


      Artistsā€™ Tools Walkthrough

      Virtual Tour
      ,

      Ā 

      Special Specialā€™s exhibitionĀ Artistsā€™ ToolsĀ opened on March 12th, days before New York went on pause. During quarantine, you can take a remote tour of our space and explore the work of these 32 artists through this personal guided tour! Many of these limited edition or one-of-a-kind tools are available for purchase on ourĀ website. The exhibition will be extended through the end of August 2020.Ā Ā 

      [[read-more]]

      Ā 

      About Artistsā€™ Tools:Ā 

      Artistsā€™ Tools is a group exhibition showcasing the innovative devices created by artists to aid in their creative practice or in daily life. Custom, handcrafted, repurposed, or created through assemblage, these tools can be considered artworks in their own right. Artistsā€™ Tools features contributions from 32 artists working in a variety of mediums across fields of art, design, and technology. Featured tools include a string necklace that serves as a measurement device, a self-driving gallery pedestal, and a teapot that doubles as an audio synthesizer.Ā 

      Special Special also introduces a limited edition of works on paper in collaboration with James Chrzan. Conceived to be created daily throughout the course of the exhibition, each site-specific drawing is produced by a hygrothermograph, recording changes in the temperature and humidity inside the gallery. Originally intended to record a drawing over a 24-hour period, however due to COVID-19 lockdown, the drawings record an irregular period of time, ranging from two to four weeks, between visits to the space by our director, Wen-You Cai.

      For Artistsā€™ Tools, the gallery space is transformed into a pegboard-clad and studio-inspired setting, serving as a backdrop for viewers to discover these imaginative, playful, and functional objects.


      An Evening with
      My Life as a Kinetic Sculpture

      Online Event
      ,

      James Chrzan, one of the artists featured in the Artistsā€™ Tools exhibition, gave a musical performance under his solo project, My Life as a Kinetic Sculpture. The performance features Julep Maisey and Lucky Frog and was createdĀ for Special Specialā€™s Together Alone Spring 2020 virtual programming.Ā 

      [[read-more]]

      James Chrzan is an artist, writer, and musician based in Ridgewood, NY. His work engages in the long tradition of the dematerialized art object. He founded the Ridgewood Community Seed Vault in 2019 and curates the non-corporeal fine art gallery Famous Chimps. A collection of new poems, Nice Job Haunting Me, was published by Puppy American in 2019. Narcissus pseudonarcissus, an opera in two acts written with Rachel Hillery, will premiere in 2020. He plays drums in the band Julep Maisey and releases music under the name, My Life as a Kinetic Sculpture.

      Check out our interview with James Chrzan during the Artists' Tools exhibition.


      Featured Artist:
      Patrick Carlin Mohundro

      Interview
      ,

      An interview with artist Patrick Carlin Mohundro, hosted byĀ Banyi Huang, project assistant at Special Special. Mohundro's Coaster Paintings were featured in theĀ Artists' Tools exhibition. These canvas-style coasters made of porcelain become paintings of spilled beverages, an interactive purchase that can be exchanged with the artist when dirty for a new set.


      The Frontiers Conference Call

      The Frontiers Conference
      ,

      Carousel, the Frontiers Conference Call was a performative panel that took participants on a trip across time and space. Taking place on May 17, 2020,Ā Carousel was organized by Wildman Clab (founded by Lu Zhang, 2017) in collaboration with Special Special as part of the Frontiers Conference (call), COVID-19 edition, and Together Alone virtual programming. The Frontiers Conference is an ongoing performance residency at Special Special.Ā Ā 

      [[read-more]]


      ForĀ Carousel, Wen-You Cai led a panel of distinguished experts, currently isolated in different locations, through a journey of blurry moments, reminisce on dusty small pleasures, and sometimes crisp details we have long overlooked or forgotten. The conference call connected the now discontinued Kodak Carousel slide projector, a nostalgic technology of photo sharing, to Zoom, currently the most prevalent form of communication, taking us on a digital ride that binds past, present, and future.


      Featured Artist:
      SofĆ­a Clausse

      Interview
      ,

      An interview with visual artist SofĆ­a Clausse, hosted byĀ Mark Foss, Designer at Special Special. Clausse's Squeegee Fingers, Cars Tool, and Pencil Dancers were featured in our Artists' Tools exhibition.

      SofĆ­a Clausse (b.1989, Argentina) is an artist living in London. Graduated from RISD in 2014, she is currently doing a postgraduate at the Royal Academy Schools.


      Home Demo
      by Del Hardin Hoyle

      Editorial
      ,

      Home Demo is an extended music video of Del Hardin Hoyleā€™s current musical project ā€˜Buffoonā€™. The video is a collage of performances staged in his bedroom interconnected with views of his neighborhood, the tree outside his house, the bright blue concrete of the public pool down his street, and footage of public spaces around New York shot on his TILTWARPREFLECTJIB in January 2020.Ā 

      The video streamed on our site on May 10, 2020 from 6:00pmā€“7:01pm EST. The last minute of the video references the daily communal clapping in appreciation of essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic which takes place at 7:00pm.Ā 

      Del Hardin Hoyle is the creator of TILTWARPREFLECTJIB, a tool currently featured in theĀ Artistsā€™ Tools show at Special Special.Ā 

      Ā 


      Featured Artist:
      James Chrzan

      Interview
      ,

      An interview with multidisciplinary artist James Chrzan, byĀ Wes Wittry, Art Director at Special Special. Chrzan's Hygrothermograph Drawings and Matchbook Poetry projects are featured in our Artists' Tools exhibition, currently on view at Special Special.Ā 

      [[read-more]]

      James Chrzan is an artist, writer, and musician based in Ridgewood, NY. His work engages in the long tradition of the dematerialized art object. He founded the Ridgewood Community Seed Vault in 2019 and curates the non-corporeal fine art gallery Famous Chimps. A collection of new poems, Nice Job Haunting Me, was published by Puppy American in 2019. Narcissus pseudonarcissus, an opera in two acts written with Rachel Hillery, will premiere in 2020. He plays drums in the band Julep Maisey and releases music under the name, My Life as a Kinetic Sculpture.

      Chrzan also gave a performance as My Life as a Kinetic Sculpture, alongside Julep Maisey, and Lucky Frog,Ā as part ofĀ our Together Alone, Spring 2020 virtual programming.

      Check out James' performance, An Evening with My Life as a Kinetic Sculpture featuring Julep Maisy and Lucky Frog, previously hosted on specialspecial.com.


      Featured Artist:
      Kevin Abosch

      Interview
      ,

      An interview with Kevin Abosch hosted byĀ Special Special founder and director, Wen-You Cai. Abosch discusses his artistic practice and chats about the current state of affairs during the COVID-19 lockdown in NYC. Abosch's Non-Reflecting Versatile Alligator Clip, a clip created to be of use in photoshoots, was featured in our Artists' Tools exhibition.

      [[read-more]]

      Kevin Abosch (born 1969) is an Irish conceptual artist known for his works in photography, sculpture, installation, AI, blockchain and film. Abosch's work addresses the nature of identity and value by posing ontological questions and responding to sociologic dilemmas. Abosch's work has been exhibited throughout the world, often in civic spaces, including The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, The National Museum of China, The National Gallery of Ireland, Jeu de Paume ( Paris), The Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, The BogotĆ” Museum of Modern Art, ZKM (Zentrum fĆ¼r Kunst und Medien) and Dublin Airport.


      Afternoon Tea & Jam
      Session Volume 01

      Online Event
      ,

      Afternoon Tea & Jam is a part of Together Alone, Special Specialā€™s Spring 2020 Virtual Programing. Enjoy this synthesizer jam session between Tiri Kananuruk, SebastiĆ”n Morales, and Britt Moseley with their artistsā€™ instruments: a USB hub-enhanced synthesizer keyboard and a synthesizer teapot.Ā This live performance was streamed on specialspecial.com on April 10, 2020. These tools are featured in our currentĀ Artistsā€™ ToolsĀ exhibition at Special Special and are also available for purchase on ourĀ website.Ā Ā 

      [[read-more]]

      Check out Afternoon Tea & Jam Volume 2Ā featuring Britt Moseley and his synthesizer teapot joined by Wen-You Cai.


      Book Launch with Wen-You Cai at Printed Matter

      Interview
      ,

      Book Launch with Wen-You Cai at Printed Matter

      In January 2020, Printed Matter bookstore hosted a book launch with Wen-You Cai for her new book Rooster, Tiger, Sheep by Snake and the second edition of her book When You Make No Art.

      Wen-You Cai was joined by multidisciplinary artists Tim Simonds and Lu Zhang to discuss how collaboration feeds their work, how they choose and identify who they want to work with to develop their ideas, and how ideas develop their community. Their conversation spanned their individual practices along with a tour through the projects that have emerged through Special Special.

      [[read-more]]

      As Wen-You has developed Special Special, it has become a platform that attracts all sorts of creative ideas and personalities. Curating projects and collaborating with artists at Special Special has a similar discipline to the curation of her photography to create a cohesive collection as she has done in Rooster, Tiger, Sheep by Snake, and the recollection of past stories as a way to make sense of them in the present in When You Make No Art.

      Rooster, Tiger, Sheep by Snake and When You Make No Art by Wen-You CaiĀ 

      WYĀ (Wen-You Cai)
      LZĀ (Lu Zhang)
      TSĀ (Tim Simonds)

      TS: I'm Tim, I'm an artist who's worked with Wen-You, and Lu.

      LZ: We've both worked together.

      TS: We are going to talk through two books that will be released at Printed Matter. One is When You Make No Art. The second is newer in some ways, older in other ways, Rooster, Tiger, Sheep, by Snake, which is a book of photos in concert with an exhibition that opened in October in Macau, and is still on view. We will talk about these two books, then we will extend that into the collaboration that we have done together, and also the space Special Special that Wen-You runs. I hope that we can get to a point where we can bring some context to Special Special's curatorial project. Wen-You, can you start by talking about this book?

      WY: Thank you Tim for your wonderful introduction, thank you all for joining us today to talk about our projects and our shared collaborations, and how collaboration is a big part of my practice. We decided to mash the titles of the two books together, just half an hour ago in our conversation. You will understand why as we continue.

      First we will go through the photo book, Rooster, Tiger, Sheep, by Snake. This is a recent release of photographs collected over twelve years, that I've taken of three members of my family. Rooster is my father, Tiger is my mum, heep is my sister, and Snake is myself. They are taken from 2006 to 2018. The photos are currently being exhibited at MGM Cotai in Macau, inside a hotel and casino that has an arts and culture program. They've invited me to do a photography exhibition there, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Macau handover back to China. What drew me to this concept is that I've always been drawn to photography from a young age, but I wasn't able to be comfortable in front of the camera for a long time. Over the years, as I kept taking photos of my family, I saw them as very photogenic. So it's an investigation of my photogenic family, and trying to understand what that means from behind the lens. As a family, we travelled around the world together, and I liked to catch candid moments. And there are captions of little stories behind the photographs and vignettes.

      This is on Chinese New Year in 2014. Throughout the photographs, there are moments that are more performative, and ones that are more candid. This one is a family funeral. I like to capture the environment as things occur. As we dressed in funerary costumes for my great-grandmother's funeral, there are little children that are going to the swimming pool in similar outfits and colors. These are more performative moments, but I'm mostly just capturing my family's natural state of the play. Throughout the photos, you see my sister, who's 13 years younger than me, grow up in front of the camera. My parents look more or less the same, but my sister becomes a timestamp. The book is in chronological order, there's also artistic elements of my father, who's an artist, and my sister, who's also cultivating her artistic side, and how that plays out in the dynamic of the family. And my family's an artistic family.Ā 

      Through the collection, I'm not shown in any of the images, except this one, where you can see me in the flash, and in another one, where you see my leg. I wanted to make myself not present, but I am also present in the composition, my participation, and the interaction between the family members. This is the exhibition in Macau. I wanted to display it in a salon style manner, against blue walls because it's not a traditional gallery space, it's at a casino, in a space that used to be a jewelry store. In order to house these works, which are very intimate, I wanted people to come in and experience the rigor of memory in a way that I see them. There are some that are chronological, but there are also mish-mashes of time. And this is my family looking at the photographs.

      There are also moments of our family visits in artistic environments. This is taken at the Uffizi Gallery. We are all nurtured and cultivated by the art that is surrounding us, as well as creating art at the same time. In the exhibition at Macau, this photograph is displayed in a lightbox in front of the casino entrance, so framing the image in a completely out-of-context environment. I was interested in presenting art in an environment that's not for people who are there to look at art. I wanted to make art accessible to everybody. So for people who are there to gamble, on vacation, or shopping, I wanted them to come and see intimate moments of our family. So what's really exciting is that a lot of the people who came and saw the show were usually on solo trips, completely un-family related trips, but they saw their own families in the exhibition.

      Wen-You Cai at Printed Matter

      Now we move to When We Make No Art.

      TS: Let me ask you. This is published in 2019, and When We Make No Art was originally published in Chinese in 2015.

      WY: I had written it from 2012 to 2014, right after I graduated college. The English version was produced in 2016. It was originally in a limited edition of 300 printed in yellow. Thanks to Printed Matter, I had sold out of the yellow copy. So I've re-editioned them in green.

      TS: Before we go three years back in time. One simple question to ask is why you choose to refer to your family members by the zodiac sign. I don't know if it's related to not wanting to show yourself in the photographs. Is there a connection between the two? And how do you think about the zodiac names?

      WY: I wanted this to be relatable to many people. Coming from a Chinese family, a lot of Chinese people ask you which animal are you, upon introduction. I wanted the book to be not so much about who my family is, I wanted the photographs to demonstrate a family of four people, one of them unseen, and show how we interact with each other. Another element to the zodiac is also that a lot of people like to instill characteristics into zodiac signs, like horoscopes. There are different associations with each animal. I was hoping by naming my family after zodiac animals, that it would be more accessible, and that it would keep people guessing, and create a dialogue, in which they might not know who this person is previously, but associate them with their zodiac traits and understand them.

      LZ: I have a related question. The whole story in the book...The Tiger is the mom, the Rooster is the father. How do you see yourself within those relationships?

      WY: There are little stories attached to the photographs. But I donā€™t use the individualsā€™ names, I use the animals. In some ways, people can guess based on that. In the beginning, it can be unclear. And I do instill a family hierarchy in the beginning, by calling my father as Rooster, my mother as Tiger, and my younger sister as Sheep. But as you look through the book, the hierarchy gradually disappears, and we are just representing animals in the Chinese zodiac. Iā€™m trying to break free of the expectations that people have of the animals, and especially when they see this book and recognize my father as a famous artist. These photographs depict a completely different aspect than what people may originally have thought.

      TS: And by expectations, you mean the image through which your family would have been known otherwise?

      WY: I wanted the book to be mainly about a family dynamic, and truthfully show candid moments in our family that people might not otherwise now. We are very humorous, we travel a lot, and are very close. From the perspective of how someone might perceive a famous artist, or our lifestyle.

      LZ: I often donā€™t see you in the photographs, you appear only in the flash in the bookā€™s cover photo. Iā€™m very curious about how you discovered yourself through this process.

      WY: Thatā€™s a good question. In both this book, and also in When You Make No Art, itā€™s about trying to figure out where my place is within our family structure. In life, we are always trying to do that regardless. Our family is a big part of what shapes us in our day to day. These two books stem through a long period of time: Rooster, Tiger, Sheep, By Snake spans 12 years, and When You Make No Art spans my upbringing until I was 24. Itā€™s an investigation of who I am, and each photograph depicts moments of happiness, sadness, and other types of information.

      LZ: Why did you choose photography?

      WY: I chose photography because I canā€™t draw. I like to use something thatā€™s instantaneous. Most of these were taken with a point-and-shoot camera. I wanted to do something that was quick. Most of them were film too, as itā€™s a format that creates an object, as opposed to digital photography, where I often lose track of where the files go. Film is more artistic in quality. So I gravitated towards photography as an instant way to make art, as a ā€œreluctant artistā€, as I say in my bio.

      TS: That seems to be the perfect transition to talk about When You Make No Art. At the end of the book, you have this realization that maybe you are a reluctant artist. Can you expand on that?

      WY: WYMNA is a book of different stories of my upbringing relating to art, and also not relating to art. Itā€™s about my family, my education in art school, growing up in general, and trying to find a sense of purpose. This photograph was taken when I was 5 years old. I had an album back in 1995, and each roll would be printed. I would pick a photo from each roll. I was working with an artist who wanted to capture the world from a childā€™s eyes. She gave me film and processed it for me. I would also write captions for them. When I was writing the book, I went back to this photo and found it very interesting. This is a project that my father did, Century of Mushroom Cloud. Itā€™s a photo of him igniting a mushroom cloud out of his hand. In the real image that he used, it didnā€™t show the ladder. But at 5 years old, I took a photo of the setup behind-the-scene, which broke the illusion of the image. I noticed later on that I took a selfie at the same spot. Itā€™s also interesting because the Twin Towers still existed in the back, it dates the image and stamps myself in the context of history.

      TS: Can you speak to the context of the images in terms of the book?

      WY: I donā€™t really have one answer to that. I think the context is that people can enter into reading this book, and perhaps understand the perspective Iā€™m writing from, which is that at the age of 5, I did create something artistic, and it was the beginning of my artmaking. From there, I kept walking on a path that deviated from artmaking, but kept coming back to it.

      LZ: I noticed that the title of the first chapter is that Museums Are An Awfully Lonely Place to Grow Up. How would you describe the relationship you have to museums, art, and artmaking? Why are museums so awful?

      WY: Itā€™s not awful. Itā€™s just an awfully lonely place. It contributed to my sensibilities. Today, I operate a storefront space called Special Special. And itā€™s a shop and gallery, and I work with a lot of artists. My upbringing in museums, felt like a lot of things were not very accessible. The context is that I grew up in museums during its after-hours. The visitors would have left and I would be alone. A place with not a lot of other people and no children to play with. So I was aloneĀ  a lot of the time. That helped create a sensibility in which I didnā€™t want to leave art, but wanted to make it a more engaging environment.

      TS: Just for people who donā€™t know, can you talk about why it is that you grew up in museums? To give some context.

      WY: My father, who is here today, his name is Cai Guo-Qiang. Heā€™s a contemporary artist whoā€™s had exhibitions at MoMA, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and all the major museums in New York and around the world. Throughout my life, he has been working as an artist.

      LZ: When were you born? And how did you get to New York?

      WY: I was born in Japan. My father was a grantee of the Asian Cultural Council residency program. We came when I was 5 years old.

      LZ: When I was reading the first chapter, I felt that I was taken to a very intimate place. Instead of approaching art in a conventional art historical way, you have your own personal way of understanding art. Did that influence what you do now?

      WY: Even though I studied art history and artmaking, I feel like everything that is bestowed upon me is not filtered through an art historical understanding, but more from a sense of observing it.

      TS: In the book, you describe a moment of going on an El Greco pilgrimage, but thereā€™s a sense that you never quite get there, as you are always turning towards something else. To me, thatā€™s how the book is set up, how time is interlaced together. One moment youā€™re in Bilbao, but on the next page you are jumping to being at RISD, trying to figure out what a critique is. These non-sequiturs are reminiscent of the photo on the right, of taking the photo on the ladder, hereā€™s a photo of something that got edited out. In the first chapter you also talk about being present when explosives are being set off. These are the background things that are going on, but not necessarily focused on the masterpieces or the actual artworks, but whatā€™s going on around it. The reason why Iā€™m bringing it up is because thatā€™s how I see your project at Special Special, and how you think about curating, perhaps, and also of how you see artworks function beyond their outward appearances.

      WY: Something that we talked about before is the idea of creating something without really understanding where itā€™s going. The stories that I write about, they are not so much about the outcome, but rather living in these moments and trying to figure out where to go. Thereā€™s no climactic arc to this book, but rather trying to find myself as an early-20 something who just graduated college and trying to understand where I stand artistically.

      Wen-You Cai at Printed Matter

      LZ: How is WYMNA related to Special Special?

      WY: During the couple of years when I was writing the book, I was also behind the scenes photographing my fatherā€™s ignitions. Before I started Special Special, I had an apartment gallery, and I called my space If and When. This was an exhibition called Supporting Characters, made by Kate Phillips. She was my classmate from RISD, and made these conjoined socks that everyone fits into. They could wear and walk around in them. It's an experiment in wearing the same socks. At the time, I was starting to think about functionality, participation, and art, and how anybody entering a space, particularly my house, where I always ask people to take their shoes off, maybe it's nice to have a project/exhibition where your shoes are already off. You can have a group of strangers come together, and figure out how to wear this sock together.

      This was an earlier project at Special Special. The space is on East 1st street, between 1st and 2nd Avenue, and we have exhibitions with artists and designers, and we also produce art editions that are functional. For every project that we do, I like for it to have some functionality, so people with all knowledge and background of art could come in and participate in something that we have, whether it's an installation or a purchase of an art collectible that's not a ridiculous price. These are select exhibitions that we had: this is a halloween costume show, this is a blanket exhibition. For every show we do, we try to completely transform the space. For this one, we made it into a homey living room space where blankets reside, it's by an artist named Oona Brangam-Snell. This is the Towelkini edition that we collaborated with the artist Aria McManus, and it's a towel that you can wear. For the opening, we had the model wearing the Towelkini walk around Soho, then we had her lie on the floor of the space for the duration of the opening. This is the Hibiscus installation by Benjamin Langford, and we collaborated with him to create a Hawaiian shirt with the hibiscus flower. This is a show with Sebastian Masuda, and we painted the whole space pink, and covered the wall with faux fur. People could come in and take a piece that they liked, collect it, and use it in a workshop setting to decorate their bags or t-shirts.

      We also started exploring the workshop format as we worked with artists. Sebastian Masuda is a well-known figure who popularized Harajuku culture. So much of that is about the freedom of self-expression, so we invited people to express themselves through these colorful furs. This is a show by Sarah Verity. We invited anybody off the street to draw a room that they loved in. The show was called Love Hotel Room. These are different rooms that people contributed to. This project is also in our pop-up space at Macau. This is a show by Jenny Hata-Blumenfield. It's a play on light. She's a ceramic artist, but through the process of the show, I suggested cyanotype photography printing technique to her. She started incorporating this technique, as well as light and shadow into her practice. This was a show that opened in October called CHKRA. We transformed the space into seven booths in different colors. Each color represented a chakra type. They are sound booths of ambient music recorded at high-end luxury retail stores. So we call it luxury retail therapy without the expensive price tag. People could come in and align themselves at Special Special and feel like they went shopping. This is our current show called Tie Me Up! Lock Me Down!. It's a jewelry and adornment show co-curated by Banyi Huang and Kristen Lee. They both curate and make jewelry. So it's an exhibition of wearables.

      I mentioned earlier that we recently created a pop-up space open at the same time as my photography exhibition in MGM hotel and casino in Macau. The concept of this space is a playground. We wanted to create an alternative space where people could go and hang out at the casino and hotel if they didn't want to go gambling or stay in their room. We have these monkey-bar contraptions. This is a see-saw we created with our fellow artist friend's oracle cards called Deck of Characters. There's also a telephone where you speak into one end, and your friend could listen at the other end of the space. We made it into a very playful shop to house our editions.

      TS: Yeah I was wondering, within the playground, why did you end up being so insistent on having a space that was dedicated to forms of participatory art, and also editions, what is an edition and why are people making particular editions for this space?

      WY: I re-read my book this past week, and there was a line in there where I said something along the lines of: ā€œI wish museums could be more like a playground,ā€ which I didnā€™t remember and then I thought back to that, that this was always an inherent connection. I think for me itā€™s because all of you are here today and experiencing this talk, and I hope that you do find something useful in this conversation. And throughout my journey in exploring art, I felt like the experience is something people can walk away with, with a new refreshed sense. Potentially they might have learnt something from another person, or they might have come up with an idea they never thought of before. So itā€™s sort of the serendipity of it, without a purpose and without an ego per se. Partially also that people are open to anything, and with that openness there are so many possibilities.

      TS: Is that what you are coming at when you say ā€œreluctant artistā€? The lack of ego?

      WY: Well thatā€™s up for interpretation, because I canā€™t say thereā€™s an ego in every artist. But I can say that a lot of artists have a vision of what they want to create, and they move towards that vision, and oftentimes we at Special Special do work with artists with a very specific set of ideas in mind. But I like for there to also be a dialogue that we have, and in the process perhaps making something unexpected. It could maybe be better sometimes, or it could be unexpected in a way where it can change the course of how they view their work up until this point. But itā€™s open to all kinds of possibilities. Should we jump into Tim?

      LZ TS: Yeah.

      WY: So this is Tim making his work for a show at Special Special last year.

      TS: Thatā€™s in studio, well Iā€™ll start from what it was. Together with Special Special, I did a scratch lotto ticket, a scratch game, but on a paper that we had produced together that was from bleached celery, and I had been bleaching celery for a couple of years before, and without any knowledge of making paper I had figured out that this could make a strange sheet of paper that is incredibly translucent. That was the project we worked on together, the people at Special Special and I all worked on it together. This is a photo of me in studio, but obviously thereā€™s a lotā€¦ Wen-You is here, taking the photo after we had gone to buy 6 boxes of celery and 30 gallons of bleach. One of the many amazing collaborative projects that seem to have occurred at Special Special.

      LZ: Whatā€™s the title?

      TS: The title of the show is Talks To Me, which was the title of the game. Is there a photo of one individual ticket? You can kind of see them there. The way that the game worked is that essentially there was a conversation between people at a dinner table, and you are scratching their speech bubble, and the speech bubble happens to make a word. Theyā€™re all randomized words, so with Wes and Mark and everyone at Special Special we meticulously but blindly randomized our stamping of these 500 lotto tickets, scratch game tickets, and then ended up selling them individually but also as sheet editions. And I guess also another thing about the process that I thought was wonderful was that there was a moment where we had to juggle what is the legal terrain of making a scratch game. Which was wonderful because the object itself? finding trust between us, both in a legal terrain, monetarily, in terms of having to pay back the people that won the game.

      LZ: I have talked to Tim about the project he made and I know that the process is very meticulous; the printmaking process, the paper making process, coming up with all the text to be printed on the celery paper and there is also the manna. What is that part?

      TS: The manna?

      LZ: Yes, in relation to the installation. The Special Special gallery had completely changed.

      TS: Well manna came from many different things, but it is another edible element, or seemingly edible, but also seemingly artificial at the same time. The hair is something Iā€™ve put into a lot of my work, as if itā€™s gotten caught in the mix. Because actually a lot of the pieces of paper have a hair, it was caught in the mix.

      LZ: Yeah, I think that overall when we see Wen-Youā€™s projects there are often different ways of collaborating with artists, like the way that Wen-You worked with Tim, the amount of editions they produced. Itā€™s kind of unique in a way. In each piece as well. All of them are different, different formats but they're editions of the collaboration. I think thatā€™s a different way. When you work with other artists there may be jackets that you can reproduce, but itā€™s also a limited edition in that way.

      TS: Well to that point, maybe itā€™s what youā€™re getting at with the manna. What I find so wonderful about the opportunity to work in editions is itā€™s accessibility. Itā€™s generous, but also generous to the artists that are producing . You are faced with the constraint of what the project space is, but not in editions.

      LZ: Yeah, I mentioned it because I donā€™t make reproducible projects, so this way me and Tim are similar in a way that when we work with Special Special on our projects we have to think about what can be made within the concept of an edition, accessible to people.

      WY: The next part is only about you.

      LZ: Oh me?! Okay, so this is a show I did with Wen-You in 2018. It was a project that I did earlier at the NARS foundation. Itā€™s a dating project, itā€™s called ā€œIt Takes 10 Years To Be On The Same Boat.ā€ Wen-You came to the dating project. I turned my studio into a dating site and had it set up as a boat, a Chinese river boat. Because the sentence, if you take the Chinese translation, it will be 十幓äæ®å¾—åŒčˆ¹ęø”. So itā€™s a lot of me thinking about how people are meeting each other in this very convenient time of technology. You have dating apps, you have email and you can connect with each other very clinically. So I had this boat I had set up, had this website that people could set up online, and they donā€™t know each other, so the only thing that links them together is time they pick to go there. So in a way itā€™s fate that chooses to pair them together, and some people drop out right before they come to the meeting, some people change their day. So then the way that they choose to meet is based on what their own schedule is. So Wen-You saw this project and she invited me to be part of the SPF show, a summer group show, so I produced a pool date.

      WY: The theme of SPF was Special Special turning into a pool over summer. Because our logo is a blue oval so it can be interpreted as a body of water. The idea was that everyone was in the same body of water, and that summer we were taking it literally, calling it a pool.

      LZ: And at that time when I was working with you, the whole group show wasnā€™t in a traditional sense, it was spontaneous and there were different artists overlapping coming in, going out in different times. I think that was also the first time that I had experienced this in a group show.

      TS: You mean that certain works were coming in and going out?

      LZ: Yes, we started with three people in the beginning and then there were other people coming in, and there were other art and projects. Itā€™s a spontaneous group show, the SPF show.

      TS: Yeah, maybe to that point, when we had our show Talks to Me, I think it was maybe a week before the show opened, Wen-You said: ā€œOh, we have someone thatā€™s an artist-in-residence who is going to ask you if you would be interested in doing a collaborative project with her, which is Lu. And I think there is a similar energy to this, as if someone was in-house, ready to collaborate with you.

      LZ: Yeah I think thatā€™s really interesting. I would also like to give a little context to why Wen-You and I started thinking similarly. When I started doing the dating project, I started an organization called Wildman Clab, and itā€™s a lab and club where I try to find the primitive human instinct, through the form of communication and interaction. I think thatā€™s when I was just thinking a lot about the unthinkable community, how to find alternative ways to communicate. And communication does not equal connection. You have to make an effort and make an exercise together to get to this connection. Because pure communication doesnā€™t mean youā€™re connected.

      TS: No, I think itā€™s also, it also reminds me of how I really think of the lotto tickets also, making a scratch card that's on translucent paper, and a really delicate one. And I am mentioning it because itā€™s similar to what we worked on together, that with something thatā€™s a piece of translucent paper, if you print on both sides of it, they are communicating by negotiating with each other. You can only read on if the other side is helping you in some way to read this side, but they're not actually fused and connected, they're these two sides.

      LZ: Iā€™ll jump into the project that Tim and I did. This is a performance we did together during Timā€™s show, itā€™s when the Frontiers Conference started entering. Because right now Wildman Clab is doing a year-long event residency at Special Special. Thatā€™s something I think Iā€™ve never heard of, as well, which Wen-You came up with a plan and then we worked together. So for the Frontiers Conference I proposed to do a poetry reading and performances at Special Special with the exhibiting artists, or with artists from the outside and then just figuring out what the communication or connection could be about. So I think that during Timā€™s show, or together on his piece, itā€™s called Efforts in Reading Kaspar by Peter Handke.

      TS: Do you want me to talk about it a little, or talk about it together?

      LZ: Yeah.

      TS: So, well I guess in part, in relation to this idea and collaboration, around the time that Lu had asked me, and we were trying to decide if we should do something together during the time of the show, I had been returning to a play that I had stuck in my mind, which is Peter Handke's writing of the story of Kaspar, Kaspar Hauser, thatā€™s disfigured. Historically the story is that itā€™s a figure that's been locked in a chamber, cave somewhere maybe by somebody and enters into this village without having any language or way of communicating at all with anybody, without having any language at all, and in the larger story he acquires language slowly through this teacher, and it has a very upsetting ending to it. But the play, Kaspar by Peter Handke, has these different characters and it has Kaspar, this figure that kind of comes on stage and doesn't really know what the stage even is, doesnā€™t know how to walk. The world around Kaspar is kind of undefined because thereā€™s no language to define it. And then thereā€™s offstage instructors that are teaching Kaspar, and giving Kaspar language, and there are certain steps in the play that they go through. So we decided to work directly, physically, with the text of this play. There was a simple thing in the beginning, of learning how to read the text itself, and we did this in several ways, by working through the text redacting a lot of parts, and switching off into different roles with Aaron Lehman, who was with us too. There were different roles of being an instructor, teaching how to read something. But in our conversations there was also a certain point where we were going to translate a part of the text. Coming to some object, like this paper, from two sides, and knowing that communication isnā€™t necessarily the connection between those two, but itā€™s the trust that whatever someone is doing on the other side, you're sharing this object together. This may be a bit theoretical. Put more simply, there were parts in the performance where we were reading the play and we would dip it into a bowl of water so that we could read the text backwards. And if youā€™ve ever read a text backwards, that you haven't encountered before, I mean some people are much better than others, but if you voice it, you are really trying to sound out what seems to be recognizable language, so it is like trying to learn how to read, butĀ  trying to learn how to read backwards.

      LZ: I think that Tim gave a little bit of background of the performance, and we helped each other read through these pieces of paper. But then to me, I think that this is one example of how Wen-You is allowing us, or allowing collaborations to happen in a very different way at Special Special.

      WY: Yeah, something about Special Special that I always tell people is that I want to create a platform and give people the opportunity of doing something that they wouldnā€™t necessarily be able to do in another setting, in a conventional art setting, and I want to give that space to people to explore.

      TS: Where do you feel you are in terms of that, when an exhibition is at Special Special?

      WY: The place started in 2016 with the idea that we would have exhibitions of art editions that we would produce too, with the artists. And more and more the idea of what an art edition is, thatā€™s also functional, has very much expanded. For example with Tim making a scratch lottery ticket on celery paper, thatā€™s kind of another direction of what it means to be functional. And then in terms of workshops and performance I started to think in the function of experience, where people come to the space and they experience something, and thatā€™s what it is - they function together in a space. And the idea of the Wildman Clab collaboration, and we call it the Frontiers Conference, it started from this idea that we had during our more of a shop-like rendition called Handle With Care where we wrapped everything in gift wrapped paper for the holiday season, all our editions, and we decided to do a masked poetry reading one afternoon. This was Luā€™s idea and we collaborated and Wes made these masks, and we pulled out all our poetry books and picked poetry to read. And after experiencing this we had some kind of epiphany, at least for me, after doing that I realized there could be a whole series of potential performances. I presented it as a conceptual poetic performance, and the idea of a conceptual poetic performance is that it could be anything. So that is when I asked Lu to be our event resident.

      LZ: So I am just temporarily in Special Special posting the Frontiers conference. When I came up with the idea I was just thinking artists, musicians, poets, theyā€™re kind of scientists, trying to explore emotions, communication, connections with each other. So this fits Wen-Youā€™s no boundary, endless form of an art piece. There were a bunch of performances in 2019 and we named it in order of number. Itā€™s a group effort each time. Mark works on the design of the poster and Wes does the set up, and then communication with the artists. So I always see that when I work with Special Special itā€™s teamwork and a group effort.

      WY: And also, the residency is also in dialogue with the existing exhibition and the space, so it becomes a collaboration, sometimes static, sometimes not static, depending on the level of participation by the artist. So this was during the Love Hotel Rooms project, where we had people participating in a workshop to draw a room, and then Lu invited her friends Rob and Wo to do a drag performance in the space where they are two friends coming together as lovers, and then it was opened up to the audience to recall someone in their life they had loved that was no longer in their life. It became a very sentimental, heartwarming exchange. Itā€™s just very open.

      LZ: And then the next one is me and Tim. How do you feel about this one?

      WY: I liked it. I think part of what was amazing about this one was that it was a complete surprise. In the first project there was a script. There was going to be a 20 minute dance performance, there was going to be a 40 minute sound recording of people talking about someone that they loved that was no longer there, and then we opened it up for anyone to talk about someone in their life, and then with this one, Tim and Lu just started talking. I set them up and said: ā€˜I think you two would be good collaborators.ā€™ And then they went off and brainstormed on what they would do, and I didnā€™t know until the performance, I really didnā€™t know what was going on. But I have felt like I trust these two artists to do something that is in the spirit of what I am hoping for. And that was what I was banking on.

      LZ: It was a really long time reading text. We read many, many times to edit the text down, in order to transform a play into a performance piece. Itā€™s two strangers met together through Wen-You, and Tim and I just sat down reading a text book together, and then I think the time of being with Tim, working on this piece, added a lot to the chemistry of the piece.

      WY: It's Lu who brings everybody together.

      LZ: So the next one is a fishing workshop, an NYC fishing workshop. The artist is Yi Xin Tong and he fishes all around the city, and then he published a book called Fishing in NYC by Gong Press. So we invited him to give a series of fishing workshops, very practical. Like where to find what type of fish, which season you should use what type of tool, so he gave a demonstration about that. So this was very different from the previous poetry readings. And then the next one was Jenny Blumenfield. Itā€™s a practice of looking at ceramics, at materials in different ways. So we had people behind the mirror, describing the object to the audience, and the audience would draw. And the most recent one is still happening, itā€™s a live Cam Karaoke. Wes worked on this technology part a lot. He figured out how to set up live surveillance inside the exhibition space, so now you see all the Special Special staff singing in front of a camera. We have Instagram live online and Youtube live online.Ā 

      WY: I just want to add that our space that you can see up until this point is actually quite small, so we canā€™t really fit too many people. And when we have performances we want many people to come, but there is a limit to it, so we started thinking about how we can do these performances in a way thatā€™s accessible to more people, so that more people can tune in from anywhere. This is something we in the past month have started experimenting with. And then tomorrow, all weekend we actually have a Cam Show, and we have programming. So this weekend, please tune in on our Instagram, and also on Youtube where you can see a multi-channel view of our space.

      LZ: I think weā€™re good now.

      TS, WY, LZ: Thank you!

      *applause*

      WY: I want to quickly thank Printed Matter for hosting us today, and I want to thank Tim and Lu for joining me on this talk, and being great collaborators and really understanding what Iā€™m trying to do, and helping me articulate that. Iā€™m very grateful for that, and thank you all for coming today.

      TS: We have 10 minutes for a few questions if there are any.

      Q: Why the name Special Special?

      WY: So Special Special is a word doubled. There are many reasons why, one main reason is because itā€™s here we are producing something special, but it's in multiples, itā€™s in edition form. And also growing up, my mom always thought I was too special.

      Q: Iā€™m wondering how big of an impact the practice of taking those photos over those years had on your relationship with your family, and how your role as the documenter and observer of your family, but also participating, affected your relationship.

      WY: I feel like the experience of photography for me isā€¦ One is in the present moment where I find something interesting, so I capture it, and the other is in the reflection upon it. So itā€™s being able to capture a moment, compose a moment and then going back to it. And I think over the years, as I go back to these images, I can recollect what it was, but also see it from a different light, and so itā€™s upon the review of it over time that I am constantly re-orienting myself in these stories and real-life moments that I have. And it's also a personal study of trying to understand where I am in relation to my family. I feel like itā€™s always changing. So even when I was putting together this book with 175 photographs, I was trying to curate and figure out what I wanted to include in this book, and editing the photos, editing down from many more photos that I had. And I was also seeing things. A lot of the things in the photographs, seeing new things in the photographs. And itā€™s so much a relationship in our lives, where we recall something and it could be different over the years.

      Q: Why do you think editions, rather than just one photograph, or one book, or as with the artist you invite to work at Special Special?

      WY: It goes back into the accessibility of Special Special, that I want to instill that not only one person can collect, but that more people can access, and Iā€™m hoping that in writing this book for more people to read, they might understand something that I donā€™t understand, and they might reach back to me and we can have a dialogue about it, and I might find something new. And with the book too, someone might see something that I donā€™t see. I donā€™t feel like I know everything about what I am producing, but I want to put something out there for people to come back and start and a conversation with me, and that we get to that next level of place together.

      LZ: I want to just quickly make a comment of what Wen-You said, because when I think about community, I often think about when other people have similar views, and hoping that other people can understand, But what Wen-You did is, she stepped out to make voice of what she thinks it should be. And in that way we heard, and came together and became a group that understood each other. And when I met Wen-You, we never talked about what we like, and why we like the things we like. But during the year of working together, we realized that this accessibility is a reason why I created Wildman Clab.

      Q: There are a lot of alternative art, independent art projects, also in the LES and East Village. How do you feel that you are contributing to that?

      WY: I think a big part of that is that there are a lot of creative types in New York, which is why thereā€™s all these creative spaces, which is why there is a large pool of people to work with, and I feel like everyday, these platforms help people gather together and create meaningful dialogues. Just like how Iā€™ve worked with a group of people at Special Special, and now weā€™re here at Printed Matter, weā€™re all just working towards understanding one another. And there are pockets where we might find common things and one another, or we might express one side of it which is a little different from another side, one way of looking at it. So itā€™s about creating perspectives, which I think is very valuable to a bigger artistic community.

      TS: Can I add something? Just because I donā€™t know if it came up so clearly. What I find very unique about Special Special, and to the question about the editions, is that when you ask an artist to do an edition, your whole team, everybody at Special Special, is there in their willingness and excitement to make it together. Doing an edition you know, itā€™s asking for us to be collaborating towards something together, which creates a completely unique set of connections amongst the people who work at Special Special. Besides the edition being distributed, itā€™s automatically entwined with everybody whoā€™s there. Everyone has different roles, everyone who works at Special Special is more than willing and wanting to have their part in it. I find that incredibly unique. I mean itā€™s way beyond what you could think of someone commissioning an artwork. Itā€™s someone saying ā€œHere! Here is a space where we will show something you want to do,ā€ and everyone here is not here just to be your PR, everyone is here to contribute to figuring out how we can do this together.

      WY: And to that, thank you to everyone at Special Special.

      *applause*

      TS: And to Rooster, and Sheep and Tiger, and to others!


      Featured Artist:
      Sydney Shen

      Interview
      ,

      Tie Me Up! Lock Me Down! is a group exhibition of jewelry and adornments at Special Special, curated by Banyi Huang and Kristen Lee. Set in the bedroom of an imagined character, it recounts stories of love, heartbreak,and reconciliation, inviting the audience to be engulfed in unhinged emotionsand extreme fantasies, poised between indulgence and repression, explicit desires and hidden symbolism. The following is a conversation livestreamed on Special Special's instagram account, between Banyi Huang and Sydney Shen, one of the artists participating under the brand name of Gesualda.

      [[read-more]]

      B (Banyi Huang)
      S (Sydney Shen)Ā 

      B: Iā€™m here with Sydney Shen, who is one of the artists in Tie Me Up! Lock Me Down!, participating under the name Gesualda. And we are here to talk about that project, and how it fits within Sydneyā€™s larger artistic practice.Ā 

      S: Gesualda is my jewelry experiment, a place for me to try things that are adjacent to my practice, that Iā€™m still working through. That as a creative exercise. I decided I wanted to make fine jewelry (sterling silver, and eventually gold). These are some pieces available at Special Special. They are various post and dangle earrings. I feel like Iā€™m on QVC.

      Some of the forms include a twisted cherry stem thatā€™s cast from a real cherry stem; a thinner one; thereā€™s a few variations on the cool S, also known as theĀ ā€œStĆ¼ssy Sā€, optical S things that everyone drew on the margins of their middle school notebooks. In the future, the S will be even more extended, eventually into oblivion. Thereā€™s also a treble clef. As far as these motifs, and why they are placed on an elf ear.

      I mentioned how Gesualda is a way for me to work through things that are not a part of my fine art practice. In that respect, it feels like Iā€™m assuming the persona of Gesualda herself. The reason for the naming is that itā€™s the feminine form of the Italian surname Gesualdo. Carlo Gesualdo is an early Reneissance composer, whose music I really like. Heā€™s known for being a visionary for making music that is dissonant. He also embodies the idea of the gendered myth of the male genius. He also brutally murdered his wife, and her lover. The whole story also fits within the scope of this show. It was said that he killed them while they were having sex, and thereā€™s rumors that afterwards he was seen wearing the tattered, bloodied dress of his wife, running through the streets, howling in agony. He was a real character, an archetypal villain. In that respect, heā€™s a very interesting person, but at the same time a total douchebag. Iā€™m trying to reconcile those ideas, which in the context of today is important, because we are also grappling with the concept of art and the individual who made them.

      I thought one way to approach it is to rename it as Gesualda, thinking, why canā€™t women be evil geniuses too? Thatā€™s how these motifs came about. This larpy medieval ear is a little bit baroque, but also twisted.

      B: The myth of Gesualda, along with its gendered dimensions, reminds me of Elizabeth BƔthory.

      S: Totally, they are in the same canon of crazy aristocrats, which Iā€™m very fascinated by.

      B: Within those legends, thereā€™s so much room for the projection of torture and sexual fantasy. Elisabeth BĆ”thory was a Hungarian noble woman who was rumored to have tortured hundreds of slave girls in her castle. Within that gendered space, there exists the idea of the monstrous feminine. Thereā€™s a lot of fear projected onto that figure, once you have gender reversal.

      S: Fear of?

      B: Fear of this unquenchable blood lust and desire, of sexual fulfillment. Or at least how these myths build through time. Some people say that the whole idea of her killing all those people was a conspiracy to blacken her name.

      S: I mean, she was rumored to have been the most prolific serial killer in all human history, which is pretty sick. She was also reputed to have bathed in the blood of virgins.

      B: I wanted to ask where your interests in the morbid and the macabre stem from, and how you initially started to explore that.

      S: For me, it feels so innate that itā€™s almost hard to pinpoint. Making artwork is trying to understand those impulses. Horror is like contradictory states of fear and wonder, the sacred and the profane, pain and pleasureā€¦etc. They are often themes that occur in genre fiction, horror in particular. Thatā€™s interesting, because those are attempts to imagine what lies beyond, trying to transcend our state of being human. IN the case of horror, the only way to experience that transcendence is through the obliteration of yourself. Characters in horror fiction are compelled by unknown forces toward these terrible discoveries.

      B: It is a vacillation between attraction and repulsion. I think itā€™s also interesting how in your work, when you explore themes in Western contexts, like the bubonic plague in Medieval times, you always pair those with scientific terms. The fascination with the occult and witchcraft, when situated in a Western context, it doesnā€™t really have a parallel in East Asian traditions. Because of foundations of science, the Enlightenment, and classification practices, in contrast, aspects of the occult and the morbid become so pronounced, and in turn hold so much appeal. I wonder if you notice those differences, and how that impacts your work, as you do research in both realms.

      S: Thatā€™s a good question. For me, maybe I am trying toĀ process it. I was really interested in reading Liao Zhai, the tales by this 16th century Chinese scholar Pu Songling, whose stories are ubiquitous and popular in China. They are short stories told in a casual vernacular, of weird and freaky stuff that happens to people. For example, it would illustrate the following: a friend of a cousin told me that a friend sneezed, and a little person came out of its nose. These goofy narratives are contrasted with supernatural tales, demons, fox spirits, people convening with the dead or falling in love with them. Iā€™m interested in that itā€™s not only horror, but also the idea of the weird. Currently, thereā€™s a lot of interest in a movement called the New Weird, but I feel like a lot of it has already been a subject of study in 16th century China. When I read Liao Zhai, it makes me think of the Twilight Zone, or Tales from the Crypt.

      B: Thatā€™s awesome! Iā€™ve been reading it too. It was first translated as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. For me, it was so astounding that the author was writing in such a matter of fact way, itā€™s like detailing a grocery list, when heā€™s chronicling people coming back from the dead, or a woman engaging in bestiality with her dog when her husbandā€™s away. Whatā€™s interesting is that it was first translated by Herbert Giles, the British sinologist who helped establish the Wade-Giles Chinese romanization system. In that version, he basically omitted everything. As someone with Victorian sensibilities and moral high ground, he just couldnā€™t bring himself to include narratives involving so-called sexual deviancy. So definitely no woman having sex with a dog. You couldnā€™t reframe it or censor it so that it makes sense to a Western audience. It kind of goes back to this point in history, the East and the West had such different attitudes the body, sex, and horror.

      S: Right now, Iā€™m working toward an exhibition for next year. It is based on a lot of research. Iā€™m thinking for it to be taking the form of a slightly falsified archive, which is something Iā€™ve never done before. It has certain overlaps with what you were talking about. Georges Bataille had all these photographs of people being executed in China, known as death by a thousand cuts. He was instrumental in circulating them around the West, and also for their misinterpretation. Actually, the people who were being executed had already been dead, so their corpses were mutilated postmortem. So it refutes the perceptions about a certain of cruelty thatā€™s associated with these photos, and certain ideas about Chinese society at the time. For Bataille, the reason he liked them so much is that the people appeared to be in a state of rapture occurring simultaneously as a state of suffering. Something martyr-like or Christ like. Itā€™s interesting to see how these photos repudiate the idea of photography as an accurate documentation of the truth, but rather that it is clearly a mediated form of authorship, both in its producer and the consumer who embellishes it. Iā€™m trying to figure out how to talk about that, in conjunction with lurid, sordid imagery that circulates on the internet now.

      B: Thatā€™s really cool. What form do you think this constructed archive will take?

      S: I really want to make some photos. I also do a lot of secret writing that Iā€™ve never figured out how to incorporate into my practice and actual artworks that I show. This might be an opportunity to create a narrative around it.

      B: In a previous interview, you mentioned having a writing project, Puritan Salvage.

      S: For me, doing something not under your own name often alleviates the burden, it makes it less precious. Just the mental state of thinking that Gesualda is doing this, or Puritan Salvage is, makes it easier. Puritan Salvage is a project under which I write short fiction and poems. Itā€™s supposed to be a waste removal company. Thinking about it as crap makes it easy to not treat it preciously, because sometimes you get too caught up in something being precious it becomes paralyzing.

      B: Itā€™s like having a secret tumblr. I also wanted ask about your interest in BDSM, for example punitive boots, binding chains, and various forms of torture devices. Can you talk about what that means for you, and if itā€™s not explicit.

      S: I feel like it comes back to this desire of wanting to exceed the limits of the body, simultaneously being very limited by it. How can you push the body to the extent where it transcends? I feel like BDSM practice is a part of it. Thereā€™s a built-in existential question to that. Why do we want to know what itā€™s like to be something else? Iā€™m so fascinated by the idea of transcendence.

      B: Transcending our physical shell?

      S: Yeah. To me, it feels like a paradox where that which restricts the body, or doing one of those salt water pool things (sensory deprivation), or meditation. In those states, you start to feel like you no longer have a body. Thereā€™s a fine line between having control and not having any control. To me thatā€™s super interesting. Even up until now, I think the way I was approaching my art practice felt very punitive. But Iā€™m slow realizing it doesnā€™t have to be that way.

      B: Maybe returning back to Gesualda, is there a particular direction you are hoping to take? What are you hoping to incorporate that you couldnā€™t do with your fine art practice?

      S: Iā€™ve always wanted to be better at metal work, so I thought that jewelry-making would be manageable on a micro level. Through that, Iā€™m starting to understand the hobby of miniature-making, because you are literally creating your own world, and just thinking about the shift in scale. It allows you to be hyper-detailed about something. I feel like my art practice is not like that, so jewelry-making is a good place to continue that.

      I also want to make other types of wearable objects. I work with chainmail, so Iā€™m trying to figure out a way to work with it thatā€™s not too tedious to weave. I just want to make more time for Gesualda in general. Iā€™m craving doing this again.

      B: Do you feel like part of this is about constructing a myth? Today, there are currents towards doing that. You could be going back and making up myths where they should have existed, perhaps due to gaps in history. I was wondering if that also ties into your project.

      S: Thatā€™s definitely a part of it, of filling in the blanks. So much of history is fiction, and thereā€™s a lot of room for elaboration and even embellishment. Jewelry is the perfect format for that, because itā€™s all about ornament and surface in that way. Thatā€™s something that Iā€™ve always felt unable to reconcile with in my art practice. As an artist or a visual person, thereā€™s a certain idea about taste, rigor, content and form, that makes something like steampunk considered to be such a vulgar aesthetic. But for me, because I am drawn to the attraction/repulsion duality, I am attracted to things that are hyper-ornamented, things that are pointless embellishment. But at the same time, I like the idea of these things, even though if I canā€™t embody them, maybe this other person (Gesualda) could embody them, and point out how ornament is quite important to visual discourse.

      B: Do you feel like you are trying to undo some of the externally or internally imposed hierarchies in the visual art realm?

      S: Absolutely. Definitely a lot for myself. Itā€™s also an experiment in allowing myself to not follow what things are supposed to be. I realize that a lot of those are self-imposed, arbitrary rules. Maybe being an artist is about developing an internal logic and questioning it.

      B: Normally, you do a lot of research to jumpstart your projects. What does your research process look like?

      S: Itā€™s like a black hole. I just get into something and hours go by. Itā€™s absurd. I just lose track of everything around me as I get hyper-interested in something. I try to contrast that with times when Iā€™m sorting through all the information, and trying to come up with some sort of index for figuring what makes something interesting. The nice thing about doing research for art versus writing a paper (didactic processes), is that itā€™s a lot more open-ended. You come up against a lot of unexpected things. In that way, fiction and fact become more intertwined. I allow that to happen more.

      Four Thieves and Vinegar, it was at Springsteen Gallery in Baltimore.

      B: I havenā€™t been to that show myself, but just looking at images of it, I find an element of cruelty thatā€™s pervasive in your work. For example, upside down chairs, the claw machine that doesnā€™t work at the New Museum. Is that something you think about?

      S: Maybe cute but sad is another way of putting it. Thatā€™s a feeling Iā€™m into that maybe relates to cruelty. But sometimes people are surprised when they meet me, because Iā€™m actually quite nice.

      B: Iā€™m really looking forward to your next project, and whatever that comes out of Gesualda. Is there a platform that you are hoping to release new content or products on?

      S: I really need to relaunch the website. Goal is to get it up by Valentineā€™s Day, the most romantic day of the year, or prior to that, so you can get stuff before that. There will be new jewelry items, and also other types of wearables. Another thing Iā€™m working on under Gesualda is my collaboration with Gregory Kalliche, who runs the project 57 Cell. It is an art space that you canā€™t visit, and only exists in the form of a catalogue. Itā€™s basically a rendered space that he expertly makes. I see my project with him as the opportunity to make a lookbook for Gesualda. It will be cool.

      B: Itā€™s digital? Or physical?

      S:Ā It will be a physical book. But the space allows for an impossible exhibition, because it's all digitally rendered in a hyperreal style. I anticipate a lot of giant women, who are anthropomorphic, alien characters modeling the pieces, maybe centaurs and stuff.

      Ā 


      Fishing in NYC:
      A Workshop with Yi Xin Tong

      Editorial
      ,

      Yi Xin Tong visited Special Special to host a workshop about fishing in NYC. The event was held in conjunction with Gong Pressā€™s release of NYC Fishing Journal at Special Special (available for purchase at specialspecial.com). The workshop was the third Frontiers Conference event, organized by Wildman Clab as part of its year-long residency at Special Special.

      [[read-more]]Ā 

      "Fishing in NYC" at Special Special

      ā€œFishing in NYC: A Workshop with Yi Xin Tongā€. Photo: Wen-You Cai

      Ā 

      Ā 

      Gong Press, NYC Fishing Journal, Yi Xin Tong, 2019

      1. What is fishing?

      People always ask me why I fish in New York. Firstly, you get spectacular views in Manhattan. Sunsets. Shipwrecks - thereā€™s a boat graveyard near Coney Island. If you are not catching fish, you can pick berries.

      Secondly, you can also fish for images. I have a GoPro camera that I turned into a lure and then attached to a hook. When I use the camera lure, I am also capturing sound and images. You might also find a pearl inside a seashell.Ā 

      Ā Ā  ā€œWhy fish in NYC?ā€ Caption and image from artist.

      Freshwater or saltwater fishing, which is better? It costs $25 for a freshwater fishing license, but for saltwater fishing, you can just get a free license online. With saltwater, you never know what you are going to catch. I ran into a seahorse once, and I felt the texture of its scales, as well as its tail around my fingers.

      ā€œNever know what you'll catch.ā€ Caption and image from artist.

      Here you are looking at a pregnant female blue crab.

      Before you start fishing, you have to know what youā€™re getting into. You will get tan lines. Every summer I get very dark, and I turn paler in the winter. In the past, I was a good studious artist. Now I'm different.

      What can we catch in NYC?

      You follow the change of seasons. With different seasons, different fish migrate into New York Cityā€™s waters. Around April, the striped bass and bluefish come from Florida, moving up north to Nova Scotia. Fish follow a certain pattern, and thatā€™s how you catch them.

      2. Gear Talk

      To start, you need a basic tackle, rod, and reel, not that much. Iā€™m an urban fisherman, so I do wear a shirt. You might also need a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, and facemasks.

      ā€œFishing in NYC: A Workshop with Yi Xin Tongā€. Photo: Wen-You Cai

      Basically, there are two kinds of rod and reel. One is spinning, beginners like to use these. The other is bait-casting, for which the reel is on top. Personally, I prefer bait-casting reels. They are compact, so you can cast and retrieve really fast. Itā€™s good for catching bass.

      I noticed that fishing reels look like cars. People really spend money on these things. Iā€™m poor, so I can only spend a lot of time.

      ā€œWhy Fishing Reel Fetish? (title) 2019, HD video, 39ā€ caption and imageĀ from the artist.

      Iā€™ll show you how it feels when you catch a fish. Usually it takes 5 seconds to reel in a fish, but this was a big one. The reel is a device that stores line, so when you cast it out, especially if the fish is really strong, it will take the line out of the reel. So you have to let the line run.

      People would cheer for me and even request to take photos with me. You get more attention and compliments than when youā€™re doing an art show. How many people come to your opening and say, ā€œCan I take a picture with you?ā€ Consider changing your career now.

      How do you catch striped bass and bluefish? They love lures. You can catch them with these soft plastic spoons. When they flutter and move in water, they resemble fish. Sometimes you can work your rod so that the bait looks like injured fish, and these appear to be easier prey that takes less energy. Fish are lazy, and so are we.

      Ā Presentation image. Courtesy of the artist.

      That is a bluefish, broiled in the oven with potatoes. It tastes perfect. We usually release the larger ones, as they donā€™t taste as good. Once you have the lures tied to your line, you need to know how to cast. Iā€™m going to show you how.

      Letā€™s practice at home like this. On the edge of your bed.


      Yi Xin Tong, Goldfish Fishing in a Hotel Bedroom for a Tiger, 2019,
      HD video with sound

      Ā 


      Fishing in NYC takes practice.

      If you are seeing the fish, you cast close to the fish. Thatā€™s called sight-fishing. If you don't see any fish and you cast, itā€™s called blind casting. Usually, if you are fishing from the shore, you want to cast further.

      In May and June, different species move into the water, such as flounder or fluke. They can change their colors to the sub-strait. Itā€™s really amazing that they can camouflage themselves. You can catch them with lures as well. They taste great and are very desirable among fishermen.

      ā€œMayā€“Aug: Summer flounder (fluke, porgy, black sea bass).ā€ caption and image from artist.

      This is a porgy. It usually weighs around one pound. They fight frantically when they are hooked. The one below is a tiny black sea bass. This one is about 6 inches or so. People also call them sea biscuits because of their good flavor.

      Now we are moving onto the concept of rigs. A rig is a combination of items including line, hook, and perhaps a bait.

      Sometimes you have to use smaller fish as bait; they come in chunks. You hook them onto your hooks then toss them out. This process is called chunking.

      Ā 3. Bonding with Different Types of Fish

      Presentation image. Courtesy of the artist.

      Ā 

      These things are called skates. Itā€™s one of my favorite fish, and one of the most hated fish. They just grab your bait and run. A lot of fishermen just leave them to die on the shore. They donā€™t throw them back because they are really bothered by them. However, some people find them tasty, and they are valued in other cultures. Sometimes you can find them at Korean markets.

      Do you see a difference between the image on the left and the right? The cross legged one is a male. The other is a female. People shouldn't be mean to a certain species. If you don't like them, just leave them alone.

      Yi Xin Tong, Animalistic Punk - Skate, 2018, Jacquard tapestry,
      metal tube, eye bolts, 63 x 90.5 x 3 in


      Moving on to herrings. They are around in the winter. Youā€™ve probably had canned ones, right? Russians and Eastern Europeans love them. There are huge schools of them coming around to Coney Island and Brooklyn. Itā€™s fun to catch them. You use long rigs with multiple hooks so you would have a string of fish coming up. They are super tasty.

      Itā€™s great to hang out with old people. They are really devoted, going out even in minus degree weather.

      Most of the time, you donā€™t catch fish. Thatā€™s the reality of fishing. But once you catch them, itā€™s really enjoyable.

      Ā  ā€œMayā€“Jan: Sea robin, shark, dogfish.ā€ caption and image from artist.

      The one on the left is a sea robin. Itā€™s very unusual looking. This is the first fish I caught in New York - it took me a whole year. I learnt by myself; I didnā€™t attend a workshop like this. On the right is a dogfish, it is like a shark. Like it or not, when you get fish and chips from restaurants, that's the preferred kind of fish.

      When you are feeling lazy, itā€™s hard to catch fish. What are some alternatives? You go to Sheepshead Bay, and you pay $75 or $100 for a half-day trip. Usually it makes it easier for catching smaller fish like ā€˜scupā€™ or porgies; you can probably catch 20 or 30 a day. Just make sure the boat doesnā€™t sink. I found this image on Craigslist: someone was trying to sell a boat that sank in the ocean.

      Yi Xin Tong, Animalistic Punk - Abandoned Sunken Boat, 2018, Jacquard tapestry, metal tube, eye bolts, 45 x 80 in.


      You can find many other species. Thereā€™s trash fish, northern kingfish, and oyster toadfish, which are sometimes sold in Chinese seafood markets. Thatā€™s a freshwater turtle I found by the ocean. Someone must have released it. I brought it back to Prospect Park, where a lot of turtles gather in a freshwater environment. This one is a huge American eel, itā€™s really tasty. This one is a puffer fish. They have the most amazing green-blue eyes.

      ā€œOther species:Ā Northern kingfish, oyster toadfish, weakfish, blackfish, American eel, winter flounder, mackerel, Atlantic menhaden (bunker), shad, turtles, pufferfish.ā€ Caption and image from artist.


      Iā€™m sure a lot of you are concerned with whether the fish are safe to eat. According to the government's map, fish that you catch in the Lower New York Bay are safer to eat than those caught in the Upper New York Bay. Coney Island is also fine. They advise you to eat the larger fish you catch only once a month because the larger fish are more likely to be predators, and accumulate more toxins in their body. For smaller fish like porgies and summer flounders, the government doesnā€™t provide much data, which means they are safe to eat.Ā 

      ā€œCatch and release. Do not take more than needed.ā€ Caption and image from artist.


      Thatā€™s me catching a 30 inch striped bass in Coney Island. It took me a long time. I thought I was going to release it, but I kept it for my friends. We went to a restaurant and asked the chef to prepare it. It took him an hour. It was really beautiful, almost transparent. He did it in the Cantonese hotpot style. There were thicker chunks with meat and bones, as well as super thin pieces.

      4. Don't Get into Fishing

      With fishing, you will also encounter disasters.

      You lose all your rigs, you get stuck, and worst of all, you get into a fight with another fisherman.

      It gets dangerous. You always want to go to areas with less fishermen. Also watch out for slippery rocks and isolated places.

      Other disasters include dangerous animals, like jaguars, snakes, beavers, depending on the area you are fishing in. But I would say the most dangerous are peer fishermen. Thereā€™s also the danger of isolating yourself too much. Initially, you do it to get away from people. You spend time away from your friends and family. You might forget to speak and lose your communication skills. I had to practice a whole week for todayā€™s presentation. But you might build your bond with other animal species.

      ā€œDisasters from fishing.ā€ Caption and image from artist.

      One goal I had with this workshop is to convince you not to fish. If you are still serious about it, we have to learn the fishermanā€™s terminologies. You have to learn how they dress and how to speak. Itā€™s all about acting and performing. If you want to learn more about fishermen language, check out this playlist calledĀ ā€œFishermenā€™s Wordsā€ on my YouTube fishing channel Gravesend Fisherman.

      ā€œStill serious about becoming a fisherman / fisherwoman / cat? Learn their terminologies. (from Fishermen's Words, 2018ā€“ongoing, poetry music video series)ā€ Caption and image from artist.

      Ā 

      A common saying isĀ ā€œJeez Louiseā€. You can say:Ā ā€œSuch a big fish. But I lost it. Jeez Louise.ā€

      I would say good luck, or in fishermenā€™s terms, ā€œtight linesā€. Why is that? If thereā€™s a fish at the end, it makes the line tight.

      About the Artist
      Yi Xin Tong is a nowhere-based artist and fisherman. Tong studied geology at China University of Geosciences in Beijing and received his BFA in Visual Art from Simon Fraser University and MFA in Studio Art from New York University. In poetic and absurd languages, he uses multimedia installation, site-specific project, video, and sound to analyze seemingly desperate social conditions, and our contradictory relationships with ourselves and with other living beings, objects, and cultural entities. Recent solo exhibitions include Snarte Space, NARS Foundation, Vanguard Gallery, Katzman Contemporary; group exhibitions include the BRIC Biennial, Guangzhou Airport Biennale, chi K11 art museum, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, MOCA Shanghai, CAFA Art Museum, Aranya Art Centre, Long March Space, Chambers Fine Art, and Alyssa Davis Gallery.

      About Gong Press
      Founded by Qianfan [New York] and St.Jiu [Beijing], GONG PRESS is a continuation of The Huntingā€™s ā€œGongā€ Column. It is named after the weapon ā€œGONG (弓, bow)ā€: a bow without arrow remains in a mild yet potent status. GONG PRESS encourages, supports, and produces art publishing.

      About Wildman Clab
      Wildman Clab, founded by Lu Zhang in 2017, is a lab/club for researching and proving the existence of primitive individuals. WC organizes activities and provides experiences. Wildman Clab has previously created social encounters through mobile karaoke at Columbus Park, New York, Boat Date at NARS Foundation, and Pool Date at Special Special. Wildman Clab is currently the events resident at Special Special and organizer of The Frontiers Conference.

      Wen-You Cai, When You Catch a Fish After Gravesend Fisherman, 2020. Video: Chia-Ying Yu

      Wherever you are, whenever it is, you can virtually fish anywhere according to tips by Yi Xin Tong (aka Gravesend Fisherman). Bad Weather No Problem: No Fish in Theory.


        Featured Artists: Benjamin Langford and John Belknap

        Interview


        (Above) Benjamin Langford, pictured left, and John Belknap, right.

        ā€œI definitely consider the things I have around me as all part of my art practice.ā€

        ā€”Benjamin Langford

        The following is an interview between Benjamin Langford and John Belknap, facilitated by Wen-You Cai and conducted in 2018. Langford and Belknap are Brooklyn-based artists who were a part of SPF, a group exhibition at Special Special that transformed the storefront into a conceptual ā€œswimming poolā€ throughout the hot months of May through August. Belknap curated Overflow, a group exhibition at Special Special that followed Hibiscus, the third part of SPF by Langford.

        This interview is published on the occasion of Late Summer, Langfordā€™s second collaboration with Special Special, and has been edited for length and clarity.

        J: John Belknap
        B: Benjamin Langford
        WY: Wen-You Cai

        J: Is any of it going to be edited? Whatā€™s off limits? Like we can go into anything?

        (both laugh)

        B: Where do we start? Do you listen to music when you make work? If so, what type of music do you listen to?

        B: I donā€™t listen to that much music when Iā€™m working. I do sometimes put on ambient things if Iā€™m specifically cutting the flowers out. Thatā€™s kind of the only part of my process where I listen to music. For some reason, I donā€™t like listening to music when Iā€™m on the computer, but when Iā€™m doing anything thatā€™s kind of meditative, where Iā€™m just slowly cutting, thatā€™s when I like it.

        J: Wow, thatā€™s interesting.

        B: When do you listen to music?

        J: If Iā€™m making, like sketches. Or if Iā€™m writing. Iā€™m always listening to music. Iā€™m always on it. But I feel like Iā€™m one of those people that always listens to really happy, really pop saturated music. So I can try to be happy. (laughs)

        B: By force; you try to force it.

        J: Right. Yeah, a lot of Charli XCX has been happening the last couple weeks. I get both ways of listening to music. I feel like the majority of the time, Iā€™m listening to something that makes me feel sinister. I like things that feel very ominous. I donā€™t know why.

        J: Are you listening to classical music when you are doing cutouts?

        B: No, itā€™s more like ambient, electronic beats. Things like that, that are just like little soundscapes. But also, you know, Iā€™m not opposed to pop music, while walking through streets or something like that.

        WY: So how was your experience working on the SPF show, seeing as both of your experiences are quite different? We approached you, Ben, to make a Hawaiian shirt and create a new hibiscus installation.

        And then with John, before you worked on this show, we worked with you on a show here last year, The Bathroom Interiors show. And then this time, we kind of talked about a different approach for a collaboration, and your approach was curating twenty-two artists to overflow our space.

        So, Iā€™m just curious to hear what your thoughts were on working with Special Special.


        (Above) Benjamin Langford, Hibiscus, 2018, Special Special, New York.

        B: I think that it was an interesting experience for me in that Iā€™ve never made a product before, or prioritized that in any kind of way. I think I went into it thinking that it wouldnā€™t be quite as actually labor intensive as it is to make like an edition of 50 shirts and the concerns that come with something that isnā€™t a one-off art piece, and that also requires packaging, and all the other things that come along with whatā€™s sort of expected from a product.

        And I think the shirtā€™s interesting in that it kind of has certain qualities that are not product-like. Like the fact that the second batch of dyed shirts has a pretty drastically different color than the first batch and certain other unpredictable elements from the process.


        (Above) Benjamin Langford,Hibiscus, 2018, Special Special, New York.

        J: Youā€™re dyeing them in hibiscus tea?

        B: Yea Iā€™m dyeing them in flowers, in hibiscus flowers specifically. But it was important to me to have something that still feels unpredictable and kind of loose about the process of making something, even if it is slightly more regimented, product-like objects.

        And then, the installation I felt like went really smoothly as I expected, because it kind of like comes naturally to me to sort of weirdly treat them as decorative objects, beyond their life as an image. Iā€™ve actually had this [hibiscus flowers] in my living room for most of the time since the (first) show. Just because like I like living with it and sort of having it around.

        J: Have you ever done a rose?Ā 

        B: I have done a rose. I have a couple roses.Ā 

        J: Would you ever do a Venus flytrap?

        B: I havenā€™t done a carnivorous flower. That would be a whole other thing.

        J: What about those big smelly ones?Ā 

        B: Amorphophallus, the ā€œcorpse flowerā€? Yeah, I make a pilgrimage for the corpus flower everytime it blooms.

        J: Really? Where is it?

        B: Itā€™s in the Bronx Botanical Garden. They only bloom once every fifteen years.

        J: I didnā€™t know that. Oh my god, I love it. Are there any flowers that are off limits that you would never do?Ā 

        B: I like flowers that work for the effect that I would like to achieve, which would only make sense for flatter flowers. Anything thatā€™s more like a clustered flower or something thatā€™s too delicate, in a way, it becomes less easy to deal with. However, Iā€™m starting to push the limits of this with some of my newer pieces. I think that my former mentality started when I was trying to be more minimal about the shapes. Iā€™m starting to do some slightly smaller pieces that have more intricate cutting, that are more precise, with little dangling edges and things like that. With those, itā€™s less about initial impact and more about these light airy pieces.Ā 


        J:Ā  So, do you have a garden?Ā 

        B: Itā€™s hard in New York City to grow anything too substantial, but I do have a little personal garden project, which is a pretty big wooden planter that I built. I have a couple of different climbing vines in it. They are a couple of aggressive climbing vines, like Wisteria and Trumpet vine. They take intense training, but you can kind of train them in any shape you want. If you are really involved, you can make it look like a little tree if you work at it. Or it can take over an entire building. Iā€™m kind of in the early phases of dealing with it.

        J: Did you grow up with a garden as well?

        B: Yeah, my mom essentially is a gardener. My earliest life is in Connecticut, where my mom has a really nice garden out there, to this day. But also spending six years in London as a kid, where there is also a big garden culture, and also living in Singapore for a few years in high schoolā€”I feel like all of these places have such an emphasis on garden culture. And they are in such different climates. I feel like I have all this subconscious of nature built in my mind, that is definitely an influence to me.

        J: Where is your favorite of the three?

        B: I think I like my years in London the best. I like my memories of it. Whereas, my parents still live in my childhood home in Connecticut, and when I go back there, I kind of donā€™t have any contact with anyone other than that. Itā€™s so close to the city. It's funny to have a place that is at once the childhood home, but also not feel like it. Versus London, I have more nostalgia and mythology around there.

        J: How do you navigate exhibition openings? Letā€™s ask that question.

        B: I guess I try not to give myself any expectations for openings and just let it be a celebration for whoever shows up. I have a tendency to have post-opening depression. Basically, every time I have an opening, Iā€™ve never really felt satisfied afterwards. I usually feel depressed the next day, or the next few days. Itā€™s not like you expect anything in particular to happen, but I think there is that buildup of working on something, and then the reward doesnā€™t happen at the opening. I usually find that the reward happens when youā€™re working on somethingā€”all the little surprises along the way. I think, more and more, I just donā€™t worry about the opening. I donā€™t let it be a mental weight for me at all. How did your opening go?

        J: I donā€™t know. 22 people is a lot of artists.

        B: Yeah, It was a busy afternoon.

        J: It was weird. I have these stark things in my memory that were like, Iā€™m going to do this, Iā€™m going to make this show happen. And one of them was the last opening I worked at, at the last gallery I was at. And a friend of mine who comes to openings was like, ā€œWhen are you going to be on the other side of this?ā€ So I really wanted to do that, in the sense of making something happen. And then itā€™s really hard to both have the play and the work mode on at the same time, which was not what I was used to. I can go to this opening even if Iā€™m fucked up and totally avoid everyone. And you canā€™t really see the art ever. Or itā€™s like, Iā€™ve worked a bunch of openings and secretly got fucked up in the basement drinking wine. I donā€™t know. I was very happy with the opening. So many people came through. And seeing in real life, the degrees of separation were so much fewer. That was so great. So many people came through, which was important. And kind of refreshing. It was really hot, though. Everyone wound up not being in the gallery space, but in the outside spaces. Overflow.

        WY: Dumpster overflow.

        J: Gallery trash.

        WY: It's funny you mention the depression. I get that a lot. It used to be worse, but itā€™s gotten better over time. Just the more that I've done, but I still feel restless at the end of the night. Like, I canā€™t sleep after opening a show at Special Special. I think thereā€™s just a lot of work that has been built up to that deadline and then suddenly itā€™s done, but then thereā€™s still a lot to do. The artist's work is mostly done at that point, but from the shopā€™s perspective, we still have a lot to do, or we have to organize everything and make sure the place is up to the standards of being visited, and organize photos, and do all this other stuff. And then prepare for the following project, too. So, thereā€™s lots of shifting pieces. But that sort of extreme anticipation, and then suddenly welcoming a lot of people into the space, and a lot of them I donā€™t know. With every show, we bring in a different crowd because of the different types of work and different artists. I think the anxiety comes from welcoming people into a personal space. To me, itā€™s a fragile experience, like letting people into my home.

        B: I donā€™t know if this is a good metaphor, but the idea of it being almost like youā€™re giving birthā€”your artwork, or the body of work, becomes a being. Thereā€™s a weird depression like, alright, now my child is out there, and you canā€™t control something thatā€™s alive.Ā 

        J: This is a very intimate conversation.

        WY: How do you guys see your practice? Can you talk a little about your practice? One, the day-to-day of what you build, in terms of self discipline as an artist, like aspirations, and then the future.Ā 

        B: I think that making a shirt, or making anything thatā€™s a lifestyle object, is kind of an interesting extension of my practice. I definitely consider the things I have around me as all part of my art practice. I tend to collect a lot of things. I take care of a lot of plants. I try to create a mental space for myself.

        Itā€™s interesting to extend art to objects for living with, because itā€™s actually not that common in artistsā€™ mental process these days. It's like, itā€™s more relegated to design, objects that are intended to be lived with rather than contemplated and seen once. So I feel that, not that that is creating a new direction in my work really, but it's an interesting tangent. I might actually be reacting against it in my more recent projects because Iā€™m starting to make some pieces that have more of a serious tone. Iā€™m trying to push the flower motif into as not-kitsch of a direction as you possibly can with flowers.

        J: Do you get that reaction from a lot of people, ā€œOh thatā€™s kitschā€?

        B: No, I think the way I made them was always as kind of idiosyncratic. Thatā€™s not generally how people see them. But now Iā€™m going further in the direction of it not being, as vis-Ć -vis, luscious of an experience to look at, in a way.Ā 

        J: Yeah they feel very life-like. Real life in a strange way. Like Da Vinciā€™s...

        B: Like the Vitruvian Man?

        J: Theyā€™re very...maybe not human? But a very alive animal.

        B: And the petals almost look chewy or something. They almost remind me of a scratch and sniff. It looks like, if you just scraped the surfaceā€¦

        J: Have you sprayed perfume?

        B: No. I think thatā€™s another reason why I was so quick to arrive at this decision on the shirts, which is to digitally print the hibiscus pattern but then subsequently dye them in the remains of hibiscus flowers. Iā€™m always interested in this weird, surface, back-up material. I think itā€™s interesting how a digital representation, in a way, does actually make you arrive at a final point that is through itā€™s synthetic quality, closer to nature than a representation thatā€™s less digitally perfected. The accuracy of this versus what a painting of a flower is, kind of intrigues me, that itā€™s this kind of objective cold way of viewing flowers, but then paired with either the physical remains of flowers or something that breathes some life into it. Thatā€™s my fascination.Ā 

        J: Can people wear these flowers?

        B: I have actually made a dress with these canvas flowers. But itā€™s not everyday wear. You canā€™t wash it.Ā 

        J: Met Gala 2020.

        B: Yeah, someday.

        Ā 
        (Above) Benjamin Langford, Hibiscus, 2018, Special Special, New York.