Thai gallery removes China-focused works after 'pressure' from Beijing

One of Thailand's top art galleries removed, at China's request, materials about Beijing's treatment of ethnic minorities and Hong Kong from an exhibit on authoritarian governments, according to a curator and communications seen by Reuters.

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BANGKOK -

In what the artists called China's latest bid to silence critics overseas, the Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre changed multiple works by artists in exile in the exhibit on authoritarian governments collaborating across borders.

When Reuters visited on Aug 7, some works previously advertised and photographed had been removed, including a multimedia installation by a Tibetan artist, while other pieces had been altered, with the words "Hong Kong", "Tibet" and "Uighur" redacted, along with the names of the artists.

Three days after Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machinery of Authoritarian Solidarity opened on July 24, Chinese embassy staff, accompanied by Bangkok city officials, "entered the exhibition and demanded its shutdown", said the exhibit's co-curator, Mr Sai, a Myanmar artist who goes by one name.

In a July 30 e-mail, the gallery said: "Due to pressure from the Chinese Embassy - transmitted through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and particularly the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, our main supporter - we have been warned that the exhibition may risk creating diplomatic tensions between Thailand and China."

The e-mail said the gallery had "no choice but to make certain adjustments", including obscuring the names of the Hong Kong, Tibetan and Uighur artists.

Several days later, Mr Sai told Reuters, the embassy demanded further removals.