2025 Wolfgang Hahn Prize

Artists

Evelyn Taocheng Wang

Press release

Evelyn Taocheng Wang (born in Chengdu, China, in 1981, lives and works in Rotterdam, Netherlands) is the recipient of the 31st Wolfgang Hahn Prize awarded by the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig. The award ceremony will take place during the Art Cologne art fair at the Museum Ludwig on Friday, November 7, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. The entrance is free. 

In her work, Wang explores cultural identities and social relationships. The title Friendship of her installation for the Museum Ludwig refers to a painting of the same name by the North American painter Agnes Martin (1912–2004), whom she admires. For her paintings, she selects a background from Martin's geometric-minimalist paintings, which she names in the painting and copies by hand in its entirety. She complements the ‘Martin-esque’ background with perfectly painted pieces of cake and characters from the children's television programme Die Sendung mit der Maus, combined with real or seemingly traditional Chinese details such as self-invented stamps or handwritten text passages add a layer of content to the visual level of the works. In this way, Wang enters into a direct dialogue with visitors and presents fictional conversations. The painted pieces of cake become symbols of celebration, togetherness and enjoyment, while at the same time raising questions about belonging, cultural hybridity and personal memories. With a sculptural installation consisting of two round gates in the Museum Ludwig, Wang invites visitors to enter the presentation and enjoy it with all their senses. A video work complements the installation. 

This year's guest juror Susanne Titz, Director of the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, explains: "Wang's drawings, created using traditional Chinese techniques of calligraphy and painting, serve as commentaries on Western culture, becoming intimate, like private poetry that is unconventional and unheard of. Evelyn Taocheng Wang has a special ability to put her own identity into her work." 

"I am very pleased that Evelyn Taocheng Wang is receiving the 2025 Wolfgang Hahn Prize. In her work, she deals with her own cultural location and the art histories of Europe, America and China in a sensitive and often surprising way. She is an artist whose work will fit perfectly into the Museum Ludwig collection and set new accents," explains Yilmaz Dziewior, Director of the Museum Ludwig and member of the jury. 

Mayen Beckmann, Chair of the Board of the Society for Modern Art, adds: "The acquisition of Evelyn Taocheng Wang's work ties in perfectly with the passion for collecting of Peter and Irene Ludwig, who were interested in ancient Chinese art from the very beginning and, in 1996, made a large donation of contemporary art to the Chinese National Museum in Beijing through the Ludwig Foundation. In Germany, Wang's works are not yet as well known as the uniqueness of her artistic position deserves."

About Evelyn Taocheng Wang

Since the comprehensive exhibition of Evelyn Taocheng Wang's works in the Central Pavilion of the 2024 Venice Biennale, the artist has become known to a wider international audience. After studying traditional Chinese art, classical Chinese literature, graphic design and visual communication in Nanjing, she completed her Master of Fine Arts at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Her works have been shown in solo exhibitions at the Museum Dordrecht, the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf and the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, among others. She received the ABN AMRO Art Award in Amsterdam and the Dorothea von Stetten Art Prize. 

About the Wolfgang Hahn Prize

The Wolfgang Hahn Prize is awarded annually by the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig, in 2025 for the 31st time. The award is primarily intended to honour contemporary artists who have already made a name for themselves in the art world through an internationally recognised oeuvre, but who are not yet as well known in Germany as they deserve to be. The prize money of a maximum of 100,000 euros is funded by the members’ contributions and goes towards the acquisition of a work or group of works by the artists for the collection of the Museum Ludwig. Linked to the prize is an exhibition organised by the Museum Ludwig of the acquired works by the awardee, as well as an accompanying publication.

The name of the prize honours the memory of the passionate Cologne-based collector and painting conservator Wolfgang Hahn (1924–1987), who was committed to the art of the European and American avant-garde in Cologne in many ways. The Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst feels indebted to his exemplary work as a collector, as a founding member of the Gesellschaft, and as head of the restoration workshops of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and the Museum Ludwig.