By JUDITH WHITE 

The board of Creative Australia, formerly the Australia Council, has betrayed its mission by enabling censorship and gross political interference in the arts, and its members must resign or be sacked.

Five days after Lebanese-born artist Khaled Sabsabi was appointed to represent Australia at the next Venice Biennale in 2026, he was unceremoniously dumped by the board late on 13 February. The decision followed an attack on the artist’s work by The Australian, flagship of the Murdoch media empire, and questions in Parliament by opposition arts spokesperson Claire Chandler.

The art world has reacted in fury. All five artists shortlisted with Sabsabi for the position immediately demanded his reinstatement. In an open letter to the board, they wrote that his removal was “antithetical to the goodwill and hard-fought artistic independence, freedom of speech and moral courage that is at the core of arts in Australia, which plays a crucial role in our thriving and democratic nation”. The signatories were Dhopiya Yunupingu, Hayley Millar Baker, James Nguyen, Jenna Mayilema Lee and Mei O’Callaghan, and their curators.

Creative Australia’s own head of visual arts, Mikala Tai, and program manager Tahmina Maskinyar both resigned in protest, and a number of staff walked out. Philanthropist Simon Mordant resigned as international ambassador for the event, saying it was “a very dark day for the arts”. Artist and board member Lindy Lee also resigned saying Thursday’s board meeting was “fraught and heartbreaking” and she felt there had been a violation of the core value that “the artist’s voice must never be silenced”. Penelope Benton, executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, called the decision “deeply troubling”.

Sabsabi and his appointed curator Michael Dagostino, CEO of Sydney University’s Chau Chak Wing Museum and much respected for his leadership in the arts in Western Sydney (above left), also reacted immediately. They said they were “extremely hurt and disappointed” and that “art should not be censored as artists reflect the times they live in”.

More than 3,000 artists, writers and academics signed an open letter calling for the reinstatement of Sabsabi and Dagostino, and the number continues to grow daily.

On 17 February the highly-credentialled selection panel which had recommended Sabsabi’s appointment wrote to the board expressing deep concern, demanding an explanation and expressing support for Sabsabi and Dagostino. The letter was signed by all five members – Dr Mariko Smith, First Nations curator at the National Museum, Professor Anthony Gardner of Oxford University, Dunja Rmandič, director of Mornington Peninsula Gallery, Wassan A-Khudhairi, contemporary art curator and Elaine Chia, executive director of the Naomi MIlgrom Foundation.

Next day Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, former director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, weighed in, saying: “No artists worth their soul will touch that pavilion now.”

The work in question

Khaled Sabsabi has worked as a video artist for more than three decades, and is widely collected and exhibited nationally and internationally. The Museum of Contemporary Art describes his work as exploring “the complexities of place, displacement, identity and ideological differences associated with migrant experiences and marginalisation”.

The work which has so exercised the Duttonites and Murdochites is a 2007 video You, in which the artist uses an image of assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, speaking in 2006 after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon was repulsed. (Hezbollah, of course, was formed in 1982 to resist a prior Israeli invasion. It has both a political arm and a military wing – like Sinn Fein and the IRA.) Another work, Thank You Very Much, includes footage of planes hitting New York’s World Trade Centre in 2001. Like all his work, most of which he produces in Western Sydney, both of these are concerned to bring together global events and daily life and enhance understanding of diverse cultures.

At the time he was appointed to the Venice Biennale role, Sabsabi said that of course artists of Middle Eastern origin are affected by the conflict there. “How can you not be affected when you have family, when you have friends there? As a human being, as a Lebanese, as an Arab, as a Muslim, as an Australian, what’s been happening is inhumane and unacceptable. This violence, destruction cannot be sustained. We need a way forward for all of us to co-exist and to respect the rights of Palestinian people and their right of return to their lands and culture.”

These may have been the words that sparked the attention of the Murdoch media and its urgers in the Zionist lobby.

But serious arts writers have long taken Sabsabi’s work seriously. Reviewing a 2020 exhibition of Sabsabi’s work at the Art Gallery of NSW, Gina Fairley wrote on the website ArtsHub: “It speaks of collected beliefs and humanity at a time when we need to be empathetic and accepting.”

Not the kind of work, then, that goes down well with Dutton’s shadow arts minister, Senator Claire Chandler. She claims that Sabsabi has “repeatedly depicted terrorists and terrorist acts in his work”.

So art should not encompass images that aim to increase our understanding of the violence in the world? Who’s next on her hit list – Picasso? Goya?

You would once have thought that a Labor Government would rebuff such crude attacks on culture from the opposition. You would once have thought that Arts Minister Tony Burke, who likes to be seen as the acceptable face of Labor realpolitik, would step up to the mark. But there’s a federal election coming. After Senator Chandler put a question in Parliament to Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Thursday 13 February, right before that Creative Australia board meeting, Burke said he was “shocked” to see images from the two videos. He also said that it was right to review Sabsabi’s selection.

The board and the Government

It raises the question of who knew on that Thursday night what the board, chaired by Clemenger advertising boss Robert Morgan, was about to decide. Artists, curators and professional advisers clearly weren’t consulted.

Creative Australia is the government’s peak body for the arts. Minister Burke claims that he abided by his obligation not to interfere politically in the organisation’s work. But when questioned by Sarah Ferguson on the ABC’s 7.30 on 17 February, he admitted that he had called CEO Adrian Collette that Thursday, after Chandler’s question in the Senate and before the board meeting. Not something, surely, that he was in the habit of doing. It makes his claim that the decision was made “at arm’s length from me” look hollow.

In its statement announcing the dumping of the artist, the board said it “believes a prolonged and divisive debate about the 2026 selection outcome poses an unacceptable risk to public support for Australia’s artistic community and could undermine our goal of bringing Australians together”.

Instead they’ve achieved a remarkable own goal. Their decision has ensured a prolonged debate, has alienated artists, young people and entire communities and has already tarnished Australia’s image overseas – the London-based Art Newspaper picked up the story within 24 hours. And that’s a false flag about “division”, one often used by the Zionist lobby. It puts aside everyone who disagrees with them as being unworthy of “inclusion”.

It’s disturbing to see Creative Australia being dragged into line by a chain of command that stretches back to Washington and Tel Aviv. The US decides that Nasrallah is a terrorist, so not only can he be assassinated, but his very image is considered a threat. (You know who else they designated a terrorist? Nelson Mandela! Even for years after his release from 28-year incarceration, even after he became President of South Africa.) Successive Australian governments take the word of Washington. Next thing you know, Nasrallah’s image is banned from works of art.

Make no mistake, right-wing interference in the Venice Biennale appointment is designed to intimidate and silence artists and others who have spoken out against genocide by the Zionist Israeli state against Palestinians and its violations of international law in Lebanon and elsewhere.

Now the board of Creative Australia has announced a review – not of its dumping of Sabsabi, but of the selection process. This smacks of political manoeuvring. It must not be allowed to further undermine either the artist or the selection panel.

Artists cannot be silenced about what is taking place in the world, and Australian arts bodies must not be dragged into the sordid practice of toeing the government line. Enough is enough.

Reinstate Khaled Sabsabi now!

You can email Creative Australia at adrian.collette@creative.gov.au and Arts Minister Tony Burke via the parliamentary website.

You can also sign the open letter calling for the reinstatement of Sabsabi and Dagostino on the Memo website.

Updated 18 February 2025

Judith White BA (Hons), BPhil (Oxon) is a former arts editor of The Sun-Herald and a former executive director of the Art Gallery Society of NSW