2025 Wolfgang Hahn Prize Winner Announced
By Annabel Preston
Portrait of EVELYN TAOCHENG WANG. Photo by Sol Archer. Courtesy Ludwig Museum, Cologne.
The 31st Wolfgang Hahn Prize, awarded annually by the patrons club of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, will be given in 2025 to Chengdu-born, Rotterdam-based multimedia artist Evelyn Taocheng Wang. The EUR 100,000 (USD 104,900) prize celebrates contemporary artists with internationally recognized oeuvres who deserve greater recognition in Germany.
Wang’s layered practice spans drawing, painting, calligraphy, installation, performance, and video art. Merging traditional Chinese techniques with allusions to Western modern and conceptual art, her work demonstrates an ability to sensitively illustrate cultural localization. Informing her work are the interconnected themes of colonial history, folklore, feminism, and queer theory.
Wang has a strong track record of solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Her Agnes Martin-inspired grid paintings, Do Not Agree with Agnes Martin All the Time (2022–23), garnered attention when they were exhibited in the Venice Biennale’s Central Pavilion. Previously, she has received the ABN AMRO Art Award in Amsterdam and the Dorothea von Stetten Art Prize in Austria.
Explaining the decision, guest juror Susanne Titz described Wang’s work as “very touching because it breaks [in a very personal and emotional way] from the abstract, detached, and museal still associated with fine art today.” Titz further emphasized Wang’s “special power to bring her own identity into the work,” to show “art and literature can actually provide thoughts and ideas for one’s own life.”
The award ceremony will take place on November 7, 2025, at Museum Ludwig during the Art Cologne art fair.
Annabel Preston is an assistant editor at ArtAsiaPacific.
