Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

Evelyn Taocheng Wang (b. 1981), a Rotterdam-based artist, is renowned for her striking blend of imaginative, layered, fragmented, and paradoxical narrations across various mediums, including painting, drawing, writing, and performance. As an immigrant artist from China residing and working in the Netherlands, Wang’s work is deeply rooted in the social context in which she finds herself. Her oeuvre merges the emotional, the poetic, and the autobiographical, intertwining transcendental and profound expressions with seemingly superficial, irrelevant, and absurd commentaries, often tinged with sardonic wit.

An Equivocal Contrast marks the debut museum solo exhibition of Evelyn Taocheng Wang beyond EuroAmerica, featuring eighteen works. It builds upon two key themes in Wang’s repertoire—her embodiment of artist Agnes Martin (1912–2004) and writer Eileen Chang (1920–1995). The exhibition takes its name from Chang’s seminal 1944 essay, “Writing of One’s Own,” in which she reflects on the nuanced complexity of her characters. These equivocal figures are not heroes, but rather ordinary individuals who bear the weight of their times with earnestness.

An Equivocal Contrast is a masterful exploration of color, beauty, perfection, and desolation that unfolds through a multilayered dialogue between Eileen Chang and Agnes Martin, with the artistic mediation of Evelyn Taocheng Wang. It delves into the age-old philosophical question of individuality, authenticity, and self-representation. By taking Eileen Chang and Agnes Martin as readymade personalities, Wang muddles the modernist ideal of purity and truth, playfully critiquing modernism’s ubiquitous desire for authenticity. In An Equivocal Contrast, authenticity is constantly forged, revealed, and broken, leaving you desolate.

常驻荷兰鹿特丹的艺术家王伊芙苓韬程 ( 生于1981) 以在绘画、写作、表演和录像等不同媒介中混入富有想象力、多层次、碎片化和矛盾的叙事而知名。作为从中国移居荷兰的艺术家，王伊芙苓韬程的创作深深根植于她所置身的社会语境。她的作品兼容情感、诗意和自传成分，将超然和深刻的表达与看似肤浅的表面、无关紧要和荒谬不经的评论交织，同时又不乏戏谑的机敏。

“参差的对照” 是王伊芙苓韬程首次在欧美之外举办的美术馆个展。展览呈现十八件作品，其中十七件为艺术家本人的新作。这些作品围绕王伊芙苓韬程艺术剧本里的两位主要化身展开：艺术家阿格妮丝 · 马丁 (1912–2004) 和作家张爱玲（1920–1995）。展览标题取自张爱玲 1944 年发表的经典散文《自己的文章》。本篇中，她讲明自己小说中的角色大多并不彻底。这些不彻底的人物并非英雄，但因为某种 “认真” 而是 “这时代的广大负荷者”，没有悲壮而只有苍凉。

“参差的对照”是一场对颜色、美、完美和苍凉的探索。经由王伊芙苓韬程的中介，张爱玲和阿格妮丝 · 马丁的隔空对话徐徐展开。展览深入探讨个体性、真实性和自我表达等古老的哲学问题。王伊芙苓韬程把阿格妮丝 ·马丁和张爱玲用作 “现成品人物”，模糊了纯粹与真理的现代主义理念，轻巧地批判了现代主义对真实的持久追寻。进入 “参差的对照”，真实性被不断重铸、揭示和打破，只剩苍凉。