[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2t13122owac4p1i.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Chinese ambassador to South Korea has ordered China\u2019s artists to withdraw from the 16th Gwangju Biennale, which opens September 5, in protest of the Gwangju Biennial Foundation allowing Taiwanese exhibitors to participate under the name \u201cTaiwan,\u201d South Korean media reported today.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a meeting with Gwangju Mayor Min Hyung-bae at Gwangju City Hall yesterday, Ambassador Dai Bing expressed his \u201cregret and concern\u201d over the decision to restore the name \u201cTaiwan Pavilion\u201d at the request of Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of Culture, the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tSpeaking on behalf of the Chinese Embassy, Dai then demanded Chinese curators and\u00a0\u00a0installation staff to halt their preparations and withdraw from the Hajeongung Art Museum in Gwangju, which was set to host their special exhibition.<\/p>\n
\n\tMBC reports that Min told Dai during their meeting that \u201cpolitical considerations should not affect the field of art.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Gwangju Biennale Foundation has been embroiled in a diplomatic dispute with Taiwan for more than year over the renaming of a satellite exhibition from the \u201cTaiwan Pavilion\u201d to the \u201cNTMoFA Pavilion,\u201d referencing its commissioning institution, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. The two parties disagreed over the circumstances surrounding the name change, with Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of Culture ultimately accusing the GBF of \u201cpolitical censorship\u201d in an August 15 statement.<\/p>\n
\n\tGBF denied allegations that it had acted without Taiwan\u2019s consent in an effort to appease Beijing, which does not recognize the sovereignty of the self-governed island. But the dispute quickly escalated into a reputational crisis for the biennale, with artists from Taiwan and China condemning the name change as a betrayal of its founding ideals. <\/p>\n
\n\tThe biennale was established in 1994 to commemorate the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, a deadly chapter in South Korea\u2019s struggle against military rule, during which upwards of 2,300 South Korean civilians were estimated to have been killed.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn Tuesday, the GBF announced that Taiwan\u2019s exhibition at its September edition can open as the \u201cTaiwan Pavilion,\u201d and be advertised as such in its promotional materials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a statement to the South Korean press, the Gwangju Biennale said, \u201cThere is not much time left until the opening on September 5, and we are closely monitoring the situation, hoping the exhibition will proceed smoothly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2t13122owac4p1i.jpg?w=1024″] The Chinese ambassador to South Korea has ordered China\u2019s artists to withdraw from the 16th Gwangju Biennale, which opens September 5, in protest of the Gwangju Biennial Foundation allowing Taiwanese exhibitors to participate under the name \u201cTaiwan,\u201d South Korean media reported today.\u00a0 In a meeting with Gwangju Mayor Min Hyung-bae at Gwangju […]<\/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-2117392","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\/2117392","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=2117392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2117392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2117392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2117392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}