Chinese artists pull out of the Gwangju Biennale over a 'Taiwan Pavilion' name

Chinese artists withdrew from the Gwangju Biennale on 4 September rather than exhibit under the same roof as a space labelled "Taiwan Pavilion." Ruan Yuelai, curator of the China Pavilion, told a news conference that the organisers had used "an incorrect designation for the participation of China's Taiwan region," that political factors had been allowed into the show, and that the Chinese team had "unanimously decided to withdraw." The biennale opens on 5 September and runs through mid-November.

The fight is about a side programme, not the main exhibition. The Pavilion Project hosts about 25 national or institutional rooms. Taiwan's entry, commissioned by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, was first billed as the Taiwan Pavilion. Organisers then changed the name to "NTMoFA Pavilion" after pressure. Taiwan's culture ministry protested. The foundation reversed itself again and restored "Taiwan Pavilion" so the show could open. That second reversal is what Beijing would not accept.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said the South Korean organisers had "stubbornly clung to the wrongful practice" and let Taiwan take part "under a designation that is completely incompatible with its status." He called on Seoul to honour the one-China principle with "concrete action." The Chinese Embassy in Seoul told the city government the naming "directly damag[ed] the political foundation of China-South Korea relations." Ambassador Dai Bing conveyed formal regret to Mayor Min Hyung-bae of the Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City. The consulate-general in Gwangju used the same line about a name "completely inconsistent with its status."

Park Yang-woo, chief executive of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, said on 4 September that he regretted the Chinese withdrawal and would reform the pavilion system so the argument does not repeat. Chinese artists had already stopped installing. Photographs circulated of a China Pavilion space left unfinished the day before opening.

Gwangju is one of Asia's main recurring art events. China is South Korea's largest trading partner. Those two facts are why a wall label became a diplomatic note. The foundation tried a bureaucratic compromise, the museum acronym, and lost both sides in sequence. Taipei would not accept the erasure. Beijing would not accept the restoration. The Chinese team then did the one thing a participating country can do on the eve of a biennale: leave.

Ruan's sentence about politics interfering with art is the official Chinese framing. The opposing framing, from Taiwan's culture ministry and from artists who wanted the original name kept, is that dropping "Taiwan" was itself the political act. The foundation's last written choice was to keep the name and lose the Chinese pavilion. Park's promised reform of the pavilion system is an attempt to write a rule that prevents the next curator from having to pick in public, two days before the doors open.

The main exhibition still opens on 5 September. The Taiwan Pavilion, under that name, is scheduled to be among the 25 side rooms. The China Pavilion will not be.