Wolfgang Hahn Prize 2025: Evelyn Taocheng Wang Evelyn Taocheng Wang

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.. 
 

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."
 

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 Society for Modern Art at the Museum Ludwig, and will be presented for the 31st time in 2025. The award is primarily intended to honour contemporary artists who have already made a name for themselves in the art world with an internationally recognised oeuvre, but who are not yet as well known in Germany as they deserve to be. The prize money, which amounts to a maximum of 100,000 euros, is made up of contributions from members and is used to purchase a work or group of works for the Museum Ludwig collection. The prize is accompanied by exhibitions of the acquired work(s) organised by the Museum Ludwig and the publication of an accompanying catalogue, which will be released in early January 2026. 
 

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

Former  Wolfgang Hahn Prize winner are: 

2024        Anna Boghiguian

2023        Francis Alÿs

2022        Frank Bowling

2021        Marcel Odenbach

2020        Betye Saar

2019        Jac Leirner

2018        Haegue Yang

2017        Trisha Donnelly

2016        Huang Yong Ping

2015        Michael Krebber / R.H. Quaytman

2014        Kerry James Marshall

2013        Andrea Fraser

2012        Henrik Olesen

2011        John Miller

2010        Peter Fischli, David Weiss

2009        Christopher Wool

2008        Peter Doig

2006        Mike Kelley

2005        Richard Artschwager

2004        Rosemarie Trockel

2003        Niele Toroni

2002        Isa Genzken

2001        Raymond Pettibon

2000        Hubert Kiecol

1999        Pipilotti Rist

1998        Franz West

1997        Cindy Sherman

1996        Günther Förg

1995        Lawrence Weiner

1994        James Lee Byars

Sponsors

The presentation, publication and award ceremony are being sponsored for the tenth year running by BAUWENS and RSM EBNER STOLZ. In addition, in 2025, the Kingdom of the Netherlands will support the publication, presentation and award ceremony for Evelyn Taocheng Wang.