anologue chapter2

ANOLOGUE CHAPTER 2

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【Two Anologues】

There is a delay of exactly 604,800 seconds between Shenzhen PETITREE gallery and Shanghai Shanghart gallery. This is the first step of “Anologue”— walking out of the “Bright Cube” from Shenzhen and into the “Dimmed Cube” in Shanghai. Shao Yuxuan provided same data for the constructions of both cubes, if any deviations appear, that were also part of his plan. However, as mentioned in exhibition anologue chapter 1 currently on view in Shenzhen, “Anologue” is not a real person. It is a Chinese transliteration of “Anologue,” a word came from a typo, a slip of the artist’s hand. What Yuxuan Shao meant to write was “Analogue.” From this accident came two exhibitions, both orderly in their emergence, and with them, two “Anologues.” Once a figure becomes refined enough to be replicated, it begins to mutate in a Kafkaesque sense. The presentation of these two exhibitions resembles two sets of results generated by GPT from the same keywords provided by Yuxuan Shao, with all visible differences manually erased. Contradictions are constantly at work.

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【Face Cream & Monument】

Space is essential for Yuxuan Shao: the layout, the inherent proportions, the smell, and of course, the light.

Even the grey tone of the walls in this exhibition is something he specified. The idea was to put HEX color code #e3e3e3—the exact shade used on the cover of the publication《a||over》for the exhibition wall. But as always, numbers on a screen differ from the facts in the real world. The grey, in the end, came from a real-world paint color called “Face Cream.” Okay. Why could “Face Cream” in any sense, to be able to describe a shade of grey? Back to the space itself—if you asked him how to quickly fill a room, he might suggest: play the ambient music—a genre born to inhabit space, to saturate it. Its repetitive melodies resonate a strong physical presence. A similar thing happens in Yuxuan Shao’s work: he placed each image in the space like a monument or stored it inside a 2×2×2meter cube—almost forcing us to walk around them, to bend down, to look closely, as if browsing each flat image in a PDF, one by one.

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【The Turning in Painting】

Yuxuan Shao published a book titled 《a||over》 in an attempt to clarify this shift. He defined the book as “a supplement to the practice and a statement of method.” Within the book, he tries to explain how ‘style’ disappeared from his vocabulary—a concept that, for him, has long ceased to function. He has no desire to generate more images, nor to chase the perfect one. He is simply dismantling the black box of the algorithm, searching—perhaps clumsily—for something real. Through the most basic prompts, or even a single emoji, he refuses to optimize, to polish, to smoothen. If his painting is turning toward anything, perhaps it’s a greater acceptance of failure—and the awkward intentions behind it.

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【Other Printed Matter & A Fake Book】

A4 paper is his most loyal accomplice.
In these two solo exhibitions, Shao Yuxuan’s works on paper are shown in large numbers for the first time, all in a uniform size. Using pencils of a single hardness, he quickly sketches out relationships between image and text, hoping to engage with each image without bias. There is also a “fake book” placed in both exhibitions—each one mimicking the other. The ‘fake’ book looks actually quite real: carefully designed, properly exported, professional bounded. What makes it “fake” is the authorship of the text. ChatGPT wrote every word. The entire text is taken from a novel written by ChatGPT, composed from fragments of Yuxuan Shao’s life, accumulated over their daily exchanges. Sometimes, GPT writes something unexpectedly lucid—a sentence that feels like a revelation. So much so that Yuxuan Shao begins to wonder if his own thoughts, when distilled to their essence, might also reach such a state.

“Today, I woke up three times.
Once in bed.
Once in the kitchen.
Once inside the sentence: ‘I’m fine.’”

Alright, let’s snap back to reality: this is who he is.

Artist

Shao Yuxuan

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Exhibition Date

2 August - 6 September 2025

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Venue

Suhe Haus 204, 30 Wen'an Road, Jing'an District, Shanghai

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