Gwangju Biennale Apologizes as China Pavilion Remains in Doubt

The Gwangju Biennale Foundation apologized on September 2 for the turmoil surrounding the Taiwan Pavilion, promised to review its procedures, and said it wanted the China Pavilion to resume. The statement clarifies the institution’s position but leaves the exhibition’s immediate status unresolved three days before the 16th Gwangju Biennale opens.

 
 

Two Apologies Addressed Different Problems

The Foundation’s September 2 statement apologized to domestic and international stakeholders for causing concern and confusion. It attributed the dispute to insufficient coordination among institutions, particularly over naming and promotional references in the agreement with the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA).

The new commitment is procedural. The Foundation said it would review and improve how the Pavilion Project is run, respect participating institutions’ autonomy, and coordinate contractual work and administrative steps through mutual understanding. It ended by expressing hope that the China Pavilion would take part again. That wording does not announce a Chinese withdrawal, but it also does not confirm a return.

Both statements addressed Pavilion Project procedures, while the city’s August 31 response also reaffirmed the “One China” policy. As Ocula reported, the city apologized for inadequate communication, reaffirmed South Korea’s “One China” policy, and described “Taiwan Pavilion” as an artistic expression rather than official recognition of Taiwan as a state.

 

The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung commissioned the Taiwan Pavilion for the 16th Gwangju Biennale. Photograph by ironypoisoning, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic; cropped.

 
 

From a Restored Name to a Halted Installation

The September 2 apology added the Foundation’s own response to procedural commitments the city had already made on August 31. The earlier Taiwan Pavilion chronology set out the conflicting accounts: Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture said the proposal was approved as “Taiwan Pavilion” on April 2 and contracted on April 23, while the Foundation said NTMoFA had entered as an institutional participant and denied censoring the exhibition’s content.

On August 25, the Foundation approved restoring the Taiwan Pavilion name after objections from the Taiwanese commissioner, artists, curators, and supporters inside the biennale. Installation at the Asia Culture Center was cleared to resume on August 27.

Also on August 27, Chinese Ambassador Dai Bing raised concern about the restored name in a meeting with Gwangju’s mayor. On August 28, curators and installation staff stopped work on the China Pavilion at the Ha Jung-woong Museum of Art and left the display unfinished. Yonhap reported that the Chinese artists had not yet arrived and that staff had not returned by that afternoon.

Program	Status established on September 2
Taiwan Pavilion	Name restored; installation resumed; September 5 opening listed
China Pavilion	Installation halted; participation still sought by the Foundation
Main biennale	Scheduled for September 5 through November 15

 
 

The Art Made the Name More Than a Label

The Taiwan Pavilion is not a neutral display given a political title after the fact. NTMoFA’s official exhibition record calls the project Instance Dungeons: Gray Zone and lists it at the Asia Culture Center from September 5 to November 15. Curated by Chen Hsiang-Wen and Lin Hsiao-Yu, it includes nine artists working individually or in collaboration.

The museum says the works examine Taiwan’s political narratives, collective memory, migration, information operations, surveillance, and individual agency. Its “instance dungeon” metaphor imagines histories and conflicts recurring inside systems of global power. Removing “Taiwan” from the pavilion name therefore affected the interpretive frame of an exhibition that explicitly locates its art in Taiwan’s geopolitical condition.

The China Pavilion also has an artistic program at stake. The Art Newspaper reported that its planned exhibition brings together 18 artists and collectives around the China-Europe Railway Express and the longer history of connections between China and Central Asia. An unfinished installation would eliminate more than a diplomatic symbol: it would remove a distinct account of infrastructure, movement, and exchange from the distributed pavilion program.

 
 

A Process Review Without a Published Rule

The Foundation’s apology changes its institutional posture. Its earlier public defense focused on the distinction between country and institutional participants and maintained that no artwork or curatorial content had been censored. The September 2 statement does not retract that account. Instead, it acknowledges failures of coordination and commits the Foundation to changing how agreements and administrative procedures are handled.

What it does not provide is the rule that will govern the next dispute. The statement does not identify which contractual clause controlled the pavilion title, explain who had authority to change promotional wording, or say whether a commissioned exhibition’s chosen name will be protected in future agreements. Those omissions do not prove improper pressure; they define the governance questions the promised review still has to answer.

That distinction is especially important in a pavilion system that mixes countries and institutions. Administrative categories may be necessary for contracts, funding, and protocol, but an exhibition title can also carry curatorial meaning. A workable policy will need to state when a classification is merely administrative and when changing public language alters an artwork’s or exhibition’s expression.

 
 

Taiwan’s Name Is Restored; China’s Exhibition Is Unresolved

NTMoFA’s permanent event record establishes that Instance Dungeons: Gray Zone is presented as the Taiwan Pavilion and scheduled to open September 5. Yonhap establishes that work on the China Pavilion stopped on August 28, while the Foundation said it had received no formal withdrawal notice, although The Fact reported on September 2 that Chinese participants had decided to withdraw and planned to announce their position the next day.

The August 31 city response combined a diplomatic clarification with promises to investigate coordination failures and improve pavilion operations; the Foundation followed with its own procedural commitment on September 2. The Foundation has not said whether its procedural review will produce a published naming rule or contractual safeguard, while a September 2 report said Chinese participants intended to announce their withdrawal the following day.