[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1232052664.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Chinese artists set to exhibit at this year\u2019s Gwangju Biennale officially withdrew today from the prestigious exhibition, which opens September 5. The announcement follows a directive issued last week by the Chinese embassy in Seoul ordering China\u2019s artistic team to halt its activities in protest of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation\u2019s decision to allow Taiwanese exhibitors to participate under the name \u201cTaiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOn the eve of the exhibition\u2019s opening, the Gwangju Biennale is grappling with a diplomatic dispute triggered by allegations that its organizers renamed the Taiwanese exhibition from the \u201cTaiwan Pavilion\u201d to \u201cThe NTMoFA Pavilion,\u201d after its commissioning institution, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. In an August statement echoed by Taiwan\u2019s Ministry of Culture, the Taiwanese artists said the Biennale made the change without their consent, characterizing it as \u201cpolitical censorship\u201d and a betrayal of the event\u2019s founding ideals tied to the pro-democracy Gwangju Uprising.<\/p>\n
\n\tBeijing maintains that Taiwan is part of its territory and considers any recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state a violation of its diplomatic policy.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBecause the biennale organizers used an incorrect designation for the participation of China\u2019s Taiwan region,\u201d Ruan Yuelai, a curator for the China Pavilion, said at a news conference today, as first reported by South Korean media. Yuelai continued that \u201callowing political factors to interfere with art, the Chinese curatorial team finds this unacceptable and has unanimously decided to withdraw from the exhibition in strong protest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tChina\u2019s consulate-general in Gwangju accused the Biennale organizers of having \u201copenly allowed the Taiwan region of China to participate in the exhibition using a name that is completely inconsistent with its status.\u201d Meanwhile, a spokesperson for South Korea\u2019s Foreign Ministry told the New York Times<\/em> that the country\u2019s \u201cpolicy toward Taiwan had not changed\u201d and that the disagreement had \u201croots in the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn response to the controversy, the Gwangju Biennale organizers released the following statement: \u201cThe Gwangju Biennale Foundation sincerely apologizes 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.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tThe foundation \u201cconsistently upheld the principle that it does not intervene in or censor the planning, content or expression of exhibitions presented by participating institutions and artists,\u201d the statement concluded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/chinese-artists-officially-withdraw-from-gwangju-biennale-in-protest-of-taiwan-pavilion-1234796931\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1232052664.jpg?w=1024″] The Chinese artists set to exhibit at this year\u2019s Gwangju Biennale officially withdrew today from the prestigious exhibition, which opens September 5. The announcement follows a directive issued last week by the Chinese embassy in Seoul ordering China\u2019s artistic team to halt its activities in protest of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation\u2019s decision […]<\/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-2129824","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\/2129824","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=2129824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2129824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2129824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2129824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}