Exhibition Review: Gao Yutao Turns Light Inward

Gao Yutao. "Room 007," 2025. Inkjet print, aluminum frame, 65 x 47 cm. Image courtesy of The BLANC.

By COLLEEN DALUSONG March 18th, 2026

Cicadas, rubies, and peach blossoms are rendered equal in the eyes of Gao Yutao and his portable scanner. In his solo exhibition Afterlight, presented at The BLANC and curated by Leo Yuan, the Shanghai-based artist takes a piece of ordinary office equipment and transmutes it into a tool for artistic production. The act of scanning is both intimate and intentional, as it requires Gao to navigate his scanner over the contours of a subject, choosing when to distort and manipulate the image. 

This distortion takes the form of ruptured light that appears as a glitch-like effect. In works such as A Nocturnal Cicada Inside the Electric Wire Network and 9 Flies and 9 Purple Gems, both of which are part of Gao’s 2025 Spectrum series, the bodies of insects and industrial materials are unnaturally elongated to create thin bands of vivid color. The effect bears a strong resemblance to the SMPTE bars that were used to calibrate color, brightness, and contrast on old televisions. Similarly, Gao’s images are independent of our default assumptions and ways of perceiving the world, offering his audience an opportunity to reconfigure their perspective on the mundane items that surround us. His scanner functions almost like a funhouse mirror, taking what was once easily ignored and mischievously converting them into objects of curiosity. In Gao’s body of work, one witnesses a plastic tree and its fake fruit metamorphosize into the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, a discarded cutting wheel transform into a template for new kitchen knives, and gemstones concealed beneath the dark rocky earth become twinkling stars that traverse across the inky depths of the cosmos. 

Gao Yutao. "A Nocturnal Cicada Inside The Electric Wire Network," 2025. Inkjet print, Diasec, 166 x 120 cm. Image courtesy of The BLANC.

The glint of metal door handles and deadbolts, impersonal factory machinery, and glittering jewels coldly reflect light without offering warmth. Combined with the disjointing effect of the glitch, Gao’s oeuvre also speaks to a broader experience of misalignment and loneliness. This is most apparent in Dialogue: The Moon over the River on a Spring Night, in which Gao recites Zhang Ruoxu’s Moonlit River in Spring by the banks of the Rhine in Düsseldorf. Filmed while Gao was a student living abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic, the video depicts him and Siri taking turns to recite lines from a Tang-era poem. During this merging of classical Chinese poetry and contemporary technology, Siri answers Gao flawlessly, yet there is a noticeable lack of emotional depth in her delivery. The audience begins to question if this is truly a dialogue, as the utilization of Siri only emphasizes the absence of another human companion — reminding us that true loneliness does not merely equate to the presence of a single being, but rather reflects the absence of two individuals in communion with one another. The quest for an ideal partner is subtly echoed in Gao’s photographs of the lotus pond near the Shanghai Marriage Market, where parents of unmarried adults gather for matchmaking. The pale pink petals emerge beautifully from the murky waters, symbolizing a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness. 

However, there is still beauty to be found in solitude. When one boldly ventures into the world on their own terms, the freedom to follow one’s own curiosities leads to the crystallization of a unique outlook on life. Such freedom can be dizzying yet ecstatic, and this inherent playfulness reaches a climax in Birthday: Reading a Poem, during which Gao recites his favorite poem by heart while riding a Giant Pendulum swing. While his body hurtles across the sky, Gao’s voice echoes through an empty amusement park as he shouts, “Riding the wind, there I would fly / Yet I’m afraid the crystalline palace would be / Too high and cold for me.” Gao’s work oscillates between light and dark, coldness and warmth, loneliness and companionship; yet somewhere within these extreme contrasts, a new way of seeing can be found hidden somewhere in the scanner’s soft glow. 

Gao Yutao. "Lotus Pond No.00," 2024. Inkjet print, Diasec, 165 x 120 cm. Image courtesy of The BLANC.

Gao Yutao’s Afterlight is open through March 24, 2026 at The BLANC, 15 E 40th St, New York, NY 10016.