{"id":2104051,"date":"2026-08-20T15:02:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T12:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2104051"},"modified":"2026-08-20T15:02:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T12:02:57","slug":"taiwan-calls-renaming-of-national-pavilion-at-gwangju-biennale-political-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2104051","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan Calls Renaming of National Pavilion at Gwangju Biennale \u2018Political Censorship\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2t13122owac4p1i.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe controversy surrounding the renaming of the \u201cTaiwan Pavilion\u201d at the upcoming edition of the Gwangju Biennale, opening next month, has escalated to an international diplomacy dispute. The self-governed island\u2019s culture ministry says it \u201cstrongly protests\u201d the Korean biennial scrubbing the agreed-upon name from its presentation, vowing to take \u201cnecessary action\u201d if the exhibition\u2019s organizers breach the agreement.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Taiwan] will firmly participate in the Gwangju Biennale under the banner of \u2018Taiwan Pavilion,\u2019\u201d the Ministry of Culture reiterated on Thursday, the second statement this week addressing the matter.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dispute dates to June when the Taiwanese Culture Ministry first realized that the Biennale\u2019s program called its presentation the \u201cNTMoFA Pavilion,\u201d an acronymic reference to the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, which serves as the commissioning institution. The ministry reached out to the Gwangju City Council and the Biennale via the Taipei Mission in Korea demanding an explanation and a reinstatement of the \u201cTaiwan Pavilion\u201d name. But it received no response from the Biennale despite repeated efforts.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe controversy then erupted publicly last weekend when the pavilion\u2019s 10 participating artists and curator posted a statement accusing the Biennale\u2019s organizers of \u201cpolitical censorship\u201d and \u201cbrutally eras[ing] Taiwan\u201d after they also learned that \u201cTaiwan Pavilion\u201d did not appear on the Biennale\u2019s promotional materials that went live earlier this month. On Monday, Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of Culture, backed by its minister of foreign affairs, issued a \u201cstern protest\u201d against the decision to rename the \u201cTaiwan Pavilion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a city and a biennale with a profound history of pursuing democracy and freedom, Gwangju and the Gwangju Biennale Foundation should respect the fact that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country,\u201d the ministry\u2019s Tuesday statement reads, which notes that it received confirmation that its exhibition, \u201cInstance Dungeons: Gray Zone\u201d would appear under the banner of \u201cTaiwan Pavilion,\u201d from the Biennale on April 2, with an agreement that also used \u201cTaiwan Pavilion\u201d designation, signed on April 23.<\/p>\n

\n\tOrganizers of the Gwangju Biennale stated they did not intervene or censor exhibition planning or content, but that the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts entered into the agreement as an institution, instead of a national pavilion. The Biennale cited that an official letter of approval issued by the relevant embassy or ministry of culture is required for national pavilion applications, which it did not receive from Taiwan. Taiwan requested the pavilion to be reclassified as a national pavilion after the agreement was signed, but the Biennale were unable to accommodate the requested change, the foundation told ARTnews<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis matter does not concern the content of an exhibition or freedom of expression. It arises from an administrative difference concerning participant classification and naming conventions,\u201d the foundation said in a statement to ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cFraming or disseminating the matter as an act of censorship by the Foundation may cause serious concern for the reputation and trust of not only the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, but also the countries and institutions participating in the Pavilion project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRebutting the Biennale\u2019s response, Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of Culture shared screenshots of proposal materials and email correspondence with the Biennale foundation to illustrate that the project has always been referred to as \u201cTaiwan Pavilion,\u201d from its initial proposal submission to the final approval. The ministry stated that the Biennale\u2019s claims were erroneous, but maintained that it was willing to work with the organizers to move things forward.<\/p>\n

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Cheng Hsien-Yu,\u00a0Traced<\/em>, 2026.<\/span>Courtesy the artist<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Gwangju Biennale was founded in 1994<\/strong> to commemorate the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, during which hundreds of civilians were killed during a protest against the authoritarian military government\u2019s brutal crackdown on civil rights. Gwangju is a historically significant city in South Korea\u2019s path to democracy, and the Biennale maintains that it is \u201cgrounded in the Gwangju Spirit and its values of democracy and freedom of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Gwangju Biennale Pavilion is a relatively new feature to the South Korean exhibition, launching in 2018. This year\u2019s edition, opening September 5, will feature 28 pavilions including 16 national pavilions and 11 institutional participants, with one institution presenting two pavilions. As with the Venice Biennale, the national pavilions at Gwangju are organized separately but in tandem with the main exhibition.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis recent incident has caused a great deal of anger and frustration among the Taiwanese artistic community and general public as news has circulated online widely this week. Chen Hsiang-Wen, the pavilion\u2019s curator, told ARTnews<\/em> that while the exhibition\u2019s theme explores the peculiar geopolitical position of the island as a \u201cgray zone,\u201d none of the works on view specifically focuses on Taiwanese independence or cross-strait relations with China. \u201cEven if there were [the case], it shouldn\u2019t be an excuse for them to reject our exhibition or change the name of our pavilion without further discussion,\u201d Chen said. \u201cWe believe in freedom of speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to an exhibition description reviewed by ARTnews<\/em>, Taiwan\u2019s Gwangju presentation is built upon an earlier NTMoFA show and takes a deep dive into the island\u2019s \u201ctangled historico-political context and its geostrategic significance amid the global turmoil of the New Cold War structure.\u201d The nine featured works illustrate the artists\u2019 reflection on the impact of political technologies and surveillance mechanisms on daily life. Among them are an AI-powered installation, Traced<\/em> (2026) by Cheng Hsien-Yu, and Su Hui-Yu\u2019s The Space Warriors and the Digigrave<\/em> (2024), a moving image work revisiting a 1980s Taiwanese sci-fi series influenced by a Japanese title.<\/p>\n

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Su Hui-Yu,\u00a0The Space Warriors and the Digigrave<\/em> (still), 2024.<\/span>Courtesy the artist<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tOver the past two decades, Taiwan, a self-governed island that China claims to be part of its territory, has faced marginalization at international arts and culture events. In 1995, Taiwan took part in the Venice Biennale for the first time as a national pavilion and continued to do so until 2003, when it was demoted to a collateral event following protests from China, which had planned to organize its own national pavilion that year.<\/p>\n

\n\tAround this time, China\u2019s claim to national pavilion extended well beyond Venice, considered the Olympics of the art world. In 2002, the Taiwan Pavilion was scrubbed from the S\u00e3o Paulo Biennial under pressure from the Chinese government, and the name was changed to \u201cTaipei Fine Arts Museum,\u201d the organizing institution for that pavilion. In 2007, China demanded organizers of the Prague Quadrennial to add \u201cChina\u201d after \u201cTaiwan\u201d in the island\u2019s exhibitor title but it was rejected by the Czech Republic, causing China to withdraw from the show.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the 2007 Venice Film Festival, when Lust Caution<\/em> by Taiwanese director Ang Lee won the Golden Lion, the film was labelled a \u201cTaiwan, China\u201d production despite China having no involvement in the movie\u2019s realization. Similar naming disputes also happened in the 2011 Venice Film Festival and the 2010 Tokyo International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite this context, the participating artists for Taiwan\u2019s Gwangju contribution plan to press for change. Su Hui-Yu, one of the artists told ARTnews<\/em>, \u201cAs an artist, I find this situation clearly unacceptable. However, we can only keep fighting and finding ways around it. We must speak up for ourselves and fight for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/taiwan-national-pavilion-controversy-2026-gwangju-biennale-1234795375\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2t13122owac4p1i.jpg?w=1024″] The controversy surrounding the renaming of the \u201cTaiwan Pavilion\u201d at the upcoming edition of the Gwangju Biennale, opening next month, has escalated to an international diplomacy dispute. The self-governed island\u2019s culture ministry says it \u201cstrongly protests\u201d the Korean biennial scrubbing the agreed-upon name from its presentation, vowing to take \u201cnecessary action\u201d if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2104051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2104051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2104051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2104051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2104051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}