ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how discrete entities, which believe they sit either alongside or as part of the People’s Republic of China, have contributed to Asian representation at the Venice Biennale. For some artistic communities and individual artists, participation in the Venice Biennale remains outside their reach unless they receive endorsement by their national government. Taiwan had requested to be allowed to participate in 1995 Venice Biennale Centenary Exhibition under artistic director Jean Clair. The 1995 Venice Biennale was the appropriate Biennale to provoke change, as for the first time the Biennale was being curated by a non-Italian curator who had suggested that it was time to break with some of the traditions. In 2005, the official Venice Biennale catalogue finally established a discrete section for ‘Collateral Events’. The side issue that was emerging from Venice Biennale demonstrated how the future would play out for those countries unable to source pavilion spaces within the Giardini or in the general Venetian locality.
