Shanghai artist Gao Yutao opens first U.S. solo show

Shanghai-based artist Gao Yutao, whose scanner-based photography has been exhibited across China and Europe, is presenting his first U.S. solo exhibition at The Blanc, a contemporary art space in New York.

The show, titled “Afterlight,” includes more than 30 prints and video works from the 37-year-old artist’s Spectrum series, created in 2025. It opened on February 19 and runs through March 24.

“While the scanner is traditionally a mundane office tool, a piece of equipment for the repetitive labor of the modern workplace, I have spent the last eleven years reclaiming it as a tool for artistic production,” Gao said in written responses translated from Chinese to questions from Urgent Matter.

Gao said the exhibition includes many of his newest images, which have a “shift in appearance and feeling” from his earlier solo shows in Europe and China. He added that he regretted being unable to attend the opening because it coincides with the Lunar New Year, noting that he was present for all of his previous solo exhibitions.

Flatbed scanners have been used as an artistic tool by photographers and digital artists since the 1990s. Early artists treated scanners like cameras, placing materials directly on the glass to produce highly detailed, close-up images. In the 2000s, artists expanded on this by manipulating the scanning process to create blur and distortion.

Contemporary artists continue to explore the scanner’s mechanical light source and linear capture process, qualities that distinguish it from lens-based photography.

Gao’s work deliberately foregrounds the scanner’s light and motion as the basis for abstraction. Rather than using the scanner to document objects in high resolution, he uses its moving light source and the process of dragging materials across the sensor to produce streaked and banded images in which the original objects are often secondary or obscured.

A large projection of a video work by Gao Yutao is seen on the white wall of a gallery space, with a bench for sitting — An installation view of a video work by the artist Gao Yutao. Photo courtesy of The Blanc

Specifically in his Spectrum series, Gao places insect specimens and gemstones side by side on the scanner, then transforms them into radiant bands of light.

“The gemstones and insects are mostly sourced from the internet, though some insects are found outdoors during the summer, such as deceased cicadas and beetles,” Gao said. When sourced online, the materials are purchased from Taobao— one of China’s largest online marketplaces.

Gao began working with scanners more than a decade ago, developing the process alongside a broader practice that bridges photography, video and performance.

He earned a postgraduate degree from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2019, where he was named a “Meisterschüler,” an honorary designation given to select students who study closely with a professor — in his case, sculptor Katharina Fritsch.

Four artworks by Gao Yutao are see are seen on the white walls of a gallery space. Photo courtesy of The Blanc

“Photography has always been my primary passion, and for that reason, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf was my dream school. I was so determined to attend that I kept the academy’s logo in my wallet as a talisman until I was finally admitted,” he said.

Gao’s work with scanners began during his introductory year of study at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He started with scanning 1970s "Maximum Cards" found at flea markets, which featured images of holy relics from the Aachen Cathedral.

“By dragging and rotating them across the scanner bed, I produced results that were entirely unexpected and startling. From that point on, my exploration of the artistic image shifted primarily toward the scanner,” he said.

“Choosing this medium involved a degree of luck. I felt like a miner who started digging on a particular hilltop for no major reason, only to accidentally strike a rich vein of ore. Finding the quality was high, I began to dig deeper. Over time, I developed a deeper understanding of this tool.”

Now, Gao’s studio houses six different scanner models, including A3 and A4 desktop versions of various brands and handheld devices. “I even modify them slightly,” he said. “This equipment has become my unique and essential way of observing the world.”

The show is spread across the two rooms of the ground-floor gallery, the second of which houses at least three video works.

Among those is an 84-second video titled Water Song - How Will the Full Moon Appear, which was filmed using a drone at a nearly empty amusement park on his birthday in 2023, shortly after COVID-19 lockdowns had lifted in China.

The video features Gao shouting verse from Prelude to Water Melody by the 10th century poet Su Shi.