I rarely look in a mirror these days, not because I want to avoid my reflection, but simply because I don’t have one in the apartment I’ve recently settled into, after leaving Amsterdam. I packed light: a fiery-red kimono brought back from a recent trip to Japan, an Issey Miyake shirt given to me one birthday, and a midnight-blue suit by DVN are what serve as my dress-up options, if need be. But, truthfully, it’s mostly thermal underwear that calls to me now, and shoes that give me grip as I navigate the slippery slope of this next chapter. Elegance, it seems, is being served with the volume turned down. And yet, here it is, ever present in my mind through the work of Evelyn Taocheng Wang.

I’ve always felt that there is a calmness about Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s work that exudes a rare kind of poise – the kind that doesn’t need to be loud to be noticed. In general, Wang’s work draws upon feminist authors with wit and insight, mediating on body politics, immigration, and language. This too is deeply embodied in her installation Spreading elegance, currently on view at Galerie Fons Welters. Initially created for a 2019 exhibition at FRAC Champagne Ardenne in Reims, the installation was later presented at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 2020 as part of In the Presence of Absence, and again in 2021 at X Museum, Beijing. It has now returned to Amsterdam.

It all started like this: in 2018, Wang shared a post on social media offering clothes from the French fashion house Agnès B. in exchange for personal meditations on elegance. This invitation led to twenty-one garments being passed along, each one traded for a handwritten letter exploring what elegance means to its recipient. These correspondences form the heart of Spreading elegance, where each desk in the installation holds one of the original letters, a photograph of the garment, and occasionally, a gift offered to the artist. Wang’s own contributions tie everything together. The elegant, copied handwriting of one such letter – sent by friend and artist Mila Lanfermeijer – became the foundation for the playful banners that grace the exhibition. As a form of “autographic dress-up” the banners further deepen the work’s exploration of the topic. Spreading Elegance mirrors a process of borrowing, exchanging, and transforming, both physically and metaphorically, into something new. As an exploration of elegance, the work leaves room for the idea that elegance perhaps is not about attaining a perfected, distant ideal but about how the act of wearing and moving through the world shapes us – both outwardly and inwardly. Like a creeping plant slowly taking over a woodland patch, elegance is presented as a subtle, quietly evolving concept. Ideas about what elegance truly is vary from person to person and from culture to culture, and Wang’s installation reflects this fluidity.

Alongside Spreading Elegance, a selection of framed works from Wang’s ABN AMRO Hermitage exhibition – Het bloemblaadje, dat tijdens het ochtendkrieken was gevallen, paktte ik op in de avondschemering – is shown. The title of this exhibition is a quote Wang herself translated from a book by Chinese writer Lu Xun (1881-1936) about his childhood home, and it purposefully includes a typo. Wang acquired her Dutch citizenship in the same year Spreading elegance made its debut to the world (2019) which is why her ‘new’ identity and Dutch culture are important elements in the works from this exhibition. Here again, Wang’s plays with language as the source of architecture of one’s identity. Whether in her native Chinese or adopted English, German, Japanese, or Dutch, Wang has a way with words that feels both tender and off-kilter, adding character to every detail and transforming what could be seen as an imperfection into something flawless. Juxtaposed with the installation Spreading elegance, these works provide a deeper insight into Wang’s poetic commentary on language, artistic labor and body politics, while humbly embracing the flaws and humor of lived experiences and drawing attention to the intricacies of identity.

As a result of their marriage into this space, the exhibition extends a warm embrace with a chorus of works that gives a hallway pass and sings, ‘do with less shine, but keep your intent.’

(Text by Yana Foqué)