This is the most shameful act of political intervention in the arts that I have seen

On Thursday, the board of Creative Australia announced that artist Khaled Sabsabi would no longer represent Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2026. It was only a week earlier that he was offered the opportunity.

This is the most shameful act of political intervention in the arts that I have witnessed.

Max Delany, one of the most distinguished curators in Australia, described this as an “egregious example of our public institutions, and politicians, submitting to the misinformation, cancel culture and ideological campaigning of the lobby groups and Murdoch media”.

I do not know Khaled Sabsabi. We have mutual friends, and they all tell me that he is a man of good will. He was born in Lebanon. His family fled the civil war. His artwork has been dedicated to exploring the issues of migration, confronting the horror of war, and debunking racial stereotypes. He has done all this with the goal of peace and tolerance. In 2011, he was awarded the Blake Prize, which was established to encourage artists to explore spirituality. He was a worthy representative of Australia at the Venice Biennale, and his work has been collected by major galleries. To be stripped of the opportunity would be a horrendous humiliation.

Representing Australia at the Venice Biennale is the highest honour that any visual artist can receive from Creative Australia. Having the opportunity to create work for the Australian pavilion at the event ensures global exposure.

The Biennale application process is complex and rigorous. Artists are judged by the weight of their past work, the originality of a proposal, and the strength of their curatorial team that will realise the project. The applications are reviewed and evaluated by an expert panel that comprises artists, museum directors, curators and scholars.

I have sat on a previous panel. The discussions are robust and comprehensive. Such an important decision is not made carelessly. The nomination is then presented to the Creative Australia board.

Creative Australia is the peak funding body for the arts in Australia. Its board includes a wide range of representatives from different fields. They do not have experience comparable to the advisory panel.

The board approved the advisory panel’s nomination to appoint Sabsabi to represent Australia at the 2025 Venice Biennale, but then reversed its decision following an article in The Australian that called Sabsabi’s selection into question over a 2007 artwork that included a depiction of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The video installation is catalogued in the Museum of Contemporary Art, which described the “beams of light that shine from [Nasrallah’s] eyes and mouth, suggestive of a divine illumination”. The Morrison government listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation in 2021 – after the group’s external security organisation was listed as a terrorist group in 2003.

Creative Australia’s board called a snap meeting on Thursday evening to reconsider Sabsabi’s invitation after the Coalition raised questions in the Senate about this work and another – a 2006 video rendering showing then-US president George W. Bush and the 9/11 attacks.

By the end of the meeting, the board had decided to rescind the invitation to Sabsabi.

This bizarre backflip has never happened before. The reactions of politicians raise questions about their capacity to open up sensitive issues and examine them with the necessary nuance.

However, the shame now spreads outwardly. It brings into disrepute the whole process of governance and expert evaluation in Creative Australia. How can anyone have faith in the integrity of this process?

The immediate expression of shame against Creative Australia and solidarity with Sabsabi by prominent figures in the Australian art world has now cast a dark shadow over the whole process. Simon Mordant, twice a commissioner of the Australian pavilion for the Venice Biennale, and one of the most influential people in the art world, announced that he has immediately resigned his ambassadorial role and withdrawn his funding pledge to Creative Australia. Many artists are saying that the pavilion should now remain empty when the event opens in May.

Lindy Lee, another prominent art world figure, also resigned from the Creative Australia board following the decision.

All the other artists who were shortlisted to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale have declared that Sabsabi should be reinstated. If they will not replace him, then who, or what, will fill the space? Perhaps an empty space is all that is left.

Professor Nikos Papastergiadis is the director of the research unit in public cultures and a professor at the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication.

An earlier version of this piece appeared in Neos Kosmos.

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