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\n\tThe South Korean city of Gwangju has issued an apology for controversy that surrounded the Gwangju Biennale\u2018s Taiwan Pavilion, whose name was initially altered in promotional materials for the show, only to be returned to its current name following an outcry from its participants.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Taiwan Pavilion, one of many national pavilions that appears alongside the biennial\u2019s main exhibition, was at one point billed as the NTMoFA Pavilion, a reference to the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, which organizes it. Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of Culture alleged that the Gwangju Biennale had committed \u201cpolitical censorship\u201d through the renaming.<\/p>\n
\n\tHaving faced an open letter from artists showing in the pavilion, the Gwangju Biennale then retitled the presentation. Furthermore, the biennial denied that the renaming was meant to satiate China, which also has a pavilion at the Gwangju Biennale and which does not recognize Taiwan as a nation.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn response, China last week ordered its pavilion\u2019s artists not to show at the Gwangju Biennale and halted work on their presentation.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn Monday, Jeonnam Gwangju City sought to patch things over by suggesting that the Taiwan Pavilion\u2019s name did not indicate a \u201cchange in the position of respecting one China.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe title of the Taiwan pavilion at the Gwangju Biennale is merely an expression entrusted to participating artists within the realm of art, and it does not mean that the city or the Biennale recognizes Taiwan as a country,\u201d Jeonnam Gwangju City said.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn its statement, the city also added, \u201cWe deeply apologize for the controversy that arose regarding the 16th Gwangju Biennale pavilions due to insufficient communication between the Gwangju Biennale and participating institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThis year\u2019s edition of the Gwangju Biennale, widely regarded as the most important recurring art festival in Asia, opens on September 5.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1232052711.jpg?w=1024″] The South Korean city of Gwangju has issued an apology for controversy that surrounded the Gwangju Biennale\u2018s Taiwan Pavilion, whose name was initially altered in promotional materials for the show, only to be returned to its current name following an outcry from its participants. The Taiwan Pavilion, one of many national pavilions […]<\/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-2121455","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\/2121455","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=2121455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2121455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2121455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2121455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}