Hendrik Chabot Prize 2026: Silvia B., Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Anne Wenzel

Exhibition 12 April – 13 September

The Hendrik Chabot Prize recognizes exceptional achievements of artists who live and work in Rotterdam and the Rijnmond region. Recipients of the award are makers who through their work contribute significantly to visual art and to the city’s artistic climate. The prize is intended particularly for artists in mid-career. These are makers who have developed over the years and have established their own recognisable visual idiom. In addition to artistic quality, major considerations when awarding the prize are the meaning and eloquence of an artist’s work.

This exhibition features all three artists nominated for the 2026 Chabot Prize: Silvia B., Evelyn Taocheng Wang and Anne Wenzel. Their work differs widely in form, subject and method. And that difference demonstrates the tremendous range of artistic practice in Rotterdam. The richness and diversity of the art scene in Rotterdam today.

The Hendrik Chabot Prize is one of the awards that make up Rotterdam’s Art Prizes. This consists of three prestigious art prizes: the Brutus Prize, Hendrik Chabot Prize and Dolf Henkes Prize. The participant organizations share an ambition to stimulate qualitatively distinguished art. The three prizes each have a specific focus relating to age, artistic genre and career phase. Rotterdam’s Art Prizes also brings together various cultural institutions in Rotterdam such as CBK Rotterdam, Chabot Museum, TENT, Brutus, Stichting Droom en Daad and Stichting Volkskracht.

Silvia B.

Silvia B.’s work examines contemporary dilemmas and changing norms. Like our ideas about beauty and the relationship between us and the environment. Drawing on that, it is also about how we present ourselves on social media and elsewhere.

Her sculptures are seductive, and have a dark undertone. She creates hybrid human figures using compound elements. They come from different age groups, genders, cultures and even types. At first they seem surprisingly natural, but on closer examination they have a disconcerting quality.

Silvia B., Juni’s Longings, 2020, mixed media on tree top, clothing, accessoires, human hair wig

Evelyn Taocheng Wang

Reality and fantasy constantly interweave in Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s work. She draws, paints and writes, often all at the same time. Subjects emerge as freely from her own life as from invented stories. In her work, Wang explores the meaning of authenticity and how we regard this. She links observations about migration and connection to questions about the way we present ourselves through style, appearance and material culture. Clothes, brands and textiles constantly reappear in her work. Along with subtle references to other artists, art history, language and literature.

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Dutch Window, Chance, 2023, oil on linen canvas, private collection.

Anne Wenzel

Anne Wenzel creates sculptures and installations which appear both strong and broken. She works with ceramics, often in large formats. What some see as the medium’s technical limits is where she forges ahead. Over the years, Wenzel has drawn inspiration from the symbolic language of heroism, power and violence. This is often encased in theatrical spectacle. With metaphors for inner struggle, ideals and human failings.

Anne Wenzel, House of Fools (Johan Maurits), 2023, ceramics, photo by Peter Tijhuis.