The Chinese Pavilion at the 2026 Gwangju Biennale will withdraw from the exhibition in ‘strong protest’ over the Taiwan Pavilion’s involvement.
The Taiwan Pavilion recently had its full name reinstated following a dispute over the Biennale’s listing of the Taiwanese participation under ‘NTMoFA Pavilion’ – named after the acronym of its organising institution, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.
On Wednesday, the Gwangju Biennale Foundation issued a public apology for ‘the concern, confusion and disappointment caused’, in hope of concluding the matter. The upcoming edition’s opening on 5 September has once more been thrown into tumult.
“Because the biennale organizers used an incorrect designation for the participation of China’s Taiwan region,” a curator for the China Pavilion, Ruan Yuelai, said at today’s news conference, invoking the country’s terminology for Taiwan, which it considers its territory, and “allowing 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.”
The Chinese embassy in Seoul called the move ‘directly damaging the political foundation of China-South Korea relations’, in light of Korea’s ‘one China’ policy – acknowledging China’s claim while maintaining independent relations with Taiwan. A spokesperson for the South Korean Foreign Ministry told the New York Times that the nation’s ‘policy toward Taiwan had not changed’ and claimed the dispute had ‘roots in the private sector’.
The 2026 Gwangju Biennale, titled You Must Change Your Life and helmed by Ho Tzu Nyen, opens on 5 September and will run through until 15 November.
