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Evelyn Taocheng Wang

EVELYN TAOCHENG WANG

Being Poetic Ruins Life Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art 25 September–13 December 2026 London
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Opening: Thursday 24 September, 6—9pm

“I see the womb as an organ which provides possibility. I think this womb protects me and gives me shelter. It gave me a certain freedom.“

— Evelyn Taocheng Wang

Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art presents Being Poetic Ruins Life, the first UK institutional exhibition by Netherlands-based artist, Evelyn Taocheng Wang (b. 1981, Chengdu, China). The exhibition, staged across the CCA’s entire building, offers a comprehensive presentation of Wang’s practice to date, bringing together new commissions and significant works across painting, ink on paper, handscrolls, garments, silk paintings, installation, video and text.

Selected through Wang’s ‘make-up box’ approach, a conceptual lens through which she considers Western art history, and her unreliable narrator ‘The Cultural Whore’, works move between fiction, autobiography and cultural projection. Being Poetic Ruins Life assembles an idiosyncratic portrait of Britain shaped by translation, misunderstanding, desire and performance. Wang describes the exhibition as a “layered womb” —a metaphorical architecture and protective space where ideas can be incubated and identities remain fluid.

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About the Artist

Through painting, drawing, illustration, calligraphy and video, Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s artistic practice addresses themes from feminism to colonialism via queer theory and traditional Chinese art. Her witty work asks viewers to address cultural questions and reconsider what shapes our perceptions.

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About the Gallery

Located on the campus of Goldsmiths, University of London, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art is London’s newest contemporary arts institution, and open to everyone. Hosting world-class exhibitions by international artists, and providing a space for established and emergent practices, the institution aims to enhance Goldsmiths’ reputation for excellence and innovation in the arts. Curatorially ambitious, the exhibition programme has been devised to encompass a wide-range of exhibition-making, including new commissions, historical presentations, survey exhibitions, and long-term research projects. These are iterated in response to the spaces that make up the institution, ranging from top lit white cubes to a converted iron-lined Victorian water tank.

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Address
St James’ New Cross
London
United Kingdom
Opening Hours
Wednesday – Sunday
12pm – 6pm
(1)
London St James’ New Cross
Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art contemporary art institution in London United Kingdom
Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art
St James’ New Cross, London, United Kingdom
+44 20 8228 5969
http://www.goldsmithscca.art

Opening hours
Wednesday – Sunday
12pm – 6pm
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