REPORTER’S NOTEBOOKTaiwan-China row at Gwangju Biennale could have been avoided

JEONNAM-GWANGJU SPECIAL METROPOLITAN CITY — The "Taiwan Pavilion" dispute that overshadowed the opening of the 16th Gwangju Biennale last weekend wasn't a mere display of diplomatic tension between China and Taiwan that erupted randomly at an art event.

It laid bare a deep-running problem with one of Asia’s best-known contemporary art event organizers and raised a question: Is the organizer's management system working?

The biennale, launched in 1995 in the spirit of the May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising in 1980, has grown into Korea’s largest and Asia’s oldest and best contemporary art biennale. It has more than 10 billion won ($7.44 million) in public funding and related spending committed to each edition. Its 2026 operating budget was set at about 14.3 billion won, excluding a separate 1 billion won for replenishing its basic assets.

It seems that the problem boils down to its precarious staffing model. A team manager-level Gwangju Biennale Foundation employee on a short-term contract told The Korea Times that the biennale’s core working staff numbers only around 30, with the rest on short-term contracts.

“As so many employees work on short-term contracts, continuity in core work is cut off every edition,” the employee said on condition of anonymity. “There is no accumulated operational know-how or legacy from 16 editions.”

Reliance on project-based staffing is not unusual for a large-scale event held once every two years. But the foundation’s reliance appears to extend beyond such short-term functions to roles involving international coordination, pavilion administration and core institutional work — areas where continuity, specialized knowledge and long-term relationships are essential.

The Taiwan Pavilion dispute offered a stark illustration of the risks created by that structure.

The foundation had initially referred to the participant as the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, as registered. However, in response to objections from Taiwanese artists and officials, the foundation later approved the Taiwan Pavilion designation, only for Chinese participants to withdraw in protest.

The problem was not simply that the issue involved the politically charged question of Taiwan. It was that an organization running a global cultural platform appeared ill-prepared to recognize, anticipate and manage diplomatic consequences of naming and representing institutional agreements.

Foundation President Youn Bum-mo apologized during the press conference and acknowledged that the pavilion system needs an overhaul. He said the distinction between national and institutional pavilions “does not seem to have much meaning” and that the number of applicants had become difficult for the foundation to manage.

That admission is notable given that the pavilion project, launched in 2018 as a separate initiative from the main exhibition, expanded rapidly from nine in 2023 to 31 in 2024.

However, the department responsible for pavilion administration lost five of its six contract workers last year, leaving scant handover material, according to local news reports. New contract staff were hurriedly assigned in March and April, among whom two were left to handle communications and administrative work involving 27 countries and institutions this year.

Apparently, the Taiwan pavilion scandal wasn't the only incident revealing the foundation's lack of professionalism.

The issue came amid another damaging controversy involving the biennale’s poor administration.

In 2023, the foundation abolished the newly established Park Seo-bo Art Prize only a month after its first award ceremony, in response to protests from local artists who argued that naming the prize after the “dansaekhwa” master did not reflect the biennale’s founding democratic spirit.

Critics argued that Park had conformed to the military regime of the 1970s and turned a blind eye to the pro-democracy movement in Gwangju, making his name ill-suited to the biennale prize.

The prize was funded by Park’s GIZI Foundation, which donated $1 million, and the donation was also meant to award winners for the next nine editions.

The cancellation underscored a recurring failure to anticipate how decisions made in boardrooms would be received by artists in Gwangju, where the biennale’s legitimacy is inseparable from the region’s democratic legacy.

This year’s main exhibition, themed “You Must Change Your Life,” takes its title from Rainer Maria Rilke and examines transformation across individual, collective and planetary scales. The question now appears to apply as urgently to the foundation itself.

A biennale’s standing is not secured only by internationally known artists, ambitious curators or a large budget. It also depends on whether the institution can remember its own agreements, understand the political terrain in which it operates and take responsibility when its systems fail.