China Withdraws from Gwangju Biennale Over Taiwan Pavilion

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. On Thursday, China announced that it would withdraw its pavilion from the forthcoming Gwangju Biennale, You Must Change Your Life, over claims that the festival was misrepresenting Taiwan as an autonomous nation through its pavilion name. Central to the dispute is the Biennale’s Pavilion Project, which is separate from the main proceedings. In late August, after the Gwangju Biennale‘s official materials listed Taiwan’s pavilion as the “NTMoFA Pavilion”—named for the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts—Taiwanese participants accused the Biennale of censorship. One week later, it was confirmed that the Biennale had reinstated the pavilion as the Taiwan Pavilion, the designation the Chinese delegation is now protesting. Beijing officially considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and views any deviation from that position as a violation of the People’s Republic of China’s “One-China Principle.” “Because the biennale organizers used an incorrect designation for the participation of China’s Taiwan region, allowing political factors to interfere with art,” Ruan Yuelai, one of the curators for China’s pavilion, said at a press conference on Thursday, “the Chinese curatorial team finds this unacceptable and has unanimously decided to withdraw from the exhibition in strong protest.” Before its announced boycott, China’s pavilion had been set to present an eighteen-artist exhibition, “Iron Silk Road,” assembled by curators Wang Yan, Liu Tian, and Ruan Yuelai. South Korea‘s Gwangju Biennale is set to debut Saturday, September 5, and run until November 15. A spokesperson for South Korea’s Foreign Ministry told the New York Times that the country’s policy toward Taiwan remained unchanged and added that the Biennale dispute had originated in the private sector. In response to the controversy, the Gwangju Biennale Foundation apologized in a statement for the “concern, confusion, and disappointment caused to artists, participating institutions, audiences, and stakeholders in Korea and abroad in connection with the operation of the Pavilion Project for the 16th Gwangju Biennale.”