Questions raised after reinstatement of controversial artist for Venice Biennale
Serious concerns are being raised over Australia’s decision to reinstate artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino to represent the country at the 2026 Venice Biennale, with Jewish leaders and others questioning the government’s mixed messages on terrorism, antisemitism, and Australian values.
The decision, announced by Creative Australia this week after an independent review, reverses the pair’s sacking earlier this year following revelations that Sabsabi’s past artworks included depictions of deceased Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israeli forces in 2023. Another video work featured images of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Sabsabi, a Lebanese-born Australian artist known for exploring Middle Eastern identity and conflict, has previously worked in Palestinian refugee camps and regularly engages with themes of displacement and power structures. More than 4,000 people from the arts community reportedly backed calls for Sabsabi and Dagostino to be reinstated, signing petitions and open letters in their support.
Khaled Sabsabi (Facebook)
The independent review by governance firm Blackhall & Pearl found Creative Australia mishandled the Biennale appointment by failing to anticipate risks linked to Sabsabi’s earlier works. The report cited poor internal processes, unclear responsibilities, and a lack of preparation for public and political scrutiny. While Creative Australia apologised and promised to improve governance, the review’s terms of reference did not explicitly require scrutiny of how or why Sabsabi and Dagostino were originally rejected.
In a briefing to the Minister on 31 January 2025, Creative Australia advised that Khaled Sabsabi, along with other artists, had withdrawn from the 2022 Sydney Festival in protest over the festival’s acceptance of funding from the Israeli Embassy. The withdrawal, reported by the Sydney Morning Herald on 23 December 2021, was described as being made “out of solidarity with the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause.”
In February, then opposition arts spokeswoman Claire Chandler questioned in Parliament how an artist “who highlights a terrorist leader in his artwork” could be an appropriate representative for Australia. At the time, Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke said he was “shocked” by the artworks but claimed he had not been involved in the decision to revoke their appointment.
However, following this week’s reinstatement, Mr Burke shifted his position, offering his “full support” and claiming the works do “the exact opposite” of promoting terrorism.
Jewish community leaders have labelled the situation deeply concerning, warning it undermines public confidence in Creative Australia and weakens social cohesion.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said the reversal raised serious questions about the integrity of Australia’s cultural institutions. “Creative Australia needs to explain its reversal and the basis on which it deemed the artist unfit to represent Australia in February and a suitable choice in July,” Ryvchin said.
Michael Dagostino and Khaled Sabsabi
While acknowledging that artists should be free to engage with controversial subjects, he warned that depicting terrorists addressing mass rallies in a way that appears uncritical or even flattering sends the wrong message to both the arts sector and the broader public. “We have seen literary festivals, theatrical performances and music festivals become places where hateful, violent views are freely expressed so long as they are directed at a popular target,” he said. Ryvchin argued this trend risks making cultural spaces exclusive and unwelcoming, while degrading society rather than enriching it.
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, which previously hosted Sabsabi’s controversial Nasrallah artwork, quietly changed its online description earlier this year, removing language that referred to the image as “suggestive of a divine illumination”. The timing coincided with the original cancellation of Sabsabi’s Venice appointment.
Opposition arts spokesman Julian Leeser also criticised the reinstatement, calling it a “ridiculous outcome” that “flies in the face” of Australian values. “When the government gives a wink and a nod to decisions like this, it undermines our laws, weakens social cohesion and risks dividing Australians at home, while damaging our reputation abroad,” Leeser said.
Despite the backlash, Creative Australia insists the decision reflects its commitment to “freedom of artistic expression, supported by a strong, transparent, and accountable governance framework”. It admitted the earlier removal of Sabsabi and Dagostino had “weighed heavily on many people”, including the artistic team.
Sabsabi has defended his work, stating his artworks were intended as critiques of ideology and media depictions, but had been “weaponised” for political purposes.
The 61st Venice Biennale, considered the world’s most prestigious contemporary art showcase, begins in April 2026.
Thanks for your considered reply, @Rob Klein. We’ll have to differ on whether it’s art’s job to foster social cohesion, or if it’s even capable of doing so, especially in relation to an issue as divisive as Israel-Palestine. I’m inclined to think that it cannot, but regardless of that pessimistic outlook, it’s clear that Sabsabi’s Venice project is aiming for unity not conflict. We’ll need to wait until next year for the unveiling, but meanwhile he has told the ABC that he has in mind ‘an inclusive work, a nurturing work, a work that brings people together of all faiths, ethnicities, and genders’. To the Guardian, he described it as ‘look[ing] at Abrahamic religions and commonalities across those as well… it’s about broadening those conversations and invitations for all of us people to come together and to find another way forward.’ This doesn’t sound divisive to me, or inconsistent with ‘Australian values’, as I understand them. To the contrary, it sounds ecumenical.
Like you, and as I did make clear, I don’t think that the ‘general public’ will always grasp an artist’s intentions. We’re in agreement on that point, but let’s remember that the Venice Biennale is not aimed at a general audience, nor is the Australian pavilion conceived for an Australian public. The Biennale is a prestige international event, attended mainly by art world insiders, who are willing, able and expecting to negotiate interpretive challenges. The good news for Sabsabi’s detractors is that few who attend the exhibition will see his work as some kind of mirror of the nation’s social values at large. They will receive it first and foremost as his own, and not as a putative expression of ‘Australian values’, whatever we may take those to be. It will also be assumed that his selection was not universally supported. As Adrian Collette told Senate estimates, Biennale choices never are.
You’re right that I failed to mention Sabsabi’s withdrawal from the 2022 Sydney Festival, after it accepted funding from the Israeli government. I also failed to note that he has never expressly criticised Hamas or Hezbollah, although he did rebuke Al-Qaeda rather sharply on ABC’s “The Art Show”. One might question the fairness and the wisdom of boycotting Israeli institutions in the name of Palestinian solidarity; and I agree that hearing more from Sabsabi concerning his political views could help to ease his critics’ concerns. But in light of his blanket condemnation of all forms of political violence, the credible account that he has given of the motives for his controversial works, and the fact that his proposed work for Venice seeks to strengthen social cohesion, I’m convinced the ambiguities in his past work can be safely resolved in his favour.
@Luke Smythe:
Thank you for your comment regarding my article on Khaled Sabsabi’s reinstatement to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale. You’ve raised some points about how Sabsabi’s work has been interpreted, but it’s important to clear up some misunderstandings and missing context, especially when it comes to how his work and public statements have been received by many in the broader community.
First, you mention Penelope Benton’s claim that many art critics and curators have analysed Sabsabi’s work as a commentary on propaganda and mass media, not as an endorsement of terrorism. While it’s true that some in the arts community have taken this view, that doesn’t erase the legitimate concern that Sabsabi’s work, especially You, can easily be read as sympathetic to Hezbollah or, at the very least, unclear in how it presents the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
You also suggest the article should have mentioned that Hezbollah wasn’t fully listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government when You was made in 2007. However, this overlooks an important detail. Australia listed Hezbollah’s External Security Organisation (ESO) as a terrorist entity back in 2003, well before You was created.
The only distinction was between the ESO and the rest of the organisation, but experts have long pointed out that Hezbollah operates as one group, with no real separation between its military and political arms. Even Hezbollah’s own leaders, including Nasrallah, reject the idea that these activities are separate. So, regardless of technicalities at the time, portraying Nasrallah with radiant beams of light glowing from his face, without any clear criticism, understandably raised concerns.
You also point to the original context of You, displayed alongside a second video work, Too, containing Koranic verses, giving viewers a choice between Hezbollah propaganda and spiritual reflection. That curatorial context is relevant, but it doesn’t change the fact that You itself can easily be interpreted in a way that makes Nasrallah appear heroic or even revered.
Critics have noted that the artwork includes beams of light shining from Nasrallah’s eyes and mouth, an effect often associated with religious imagery. The work was intentionally open to interpretation, and the artist himself has admitted that not all viewers would pick up on the distinction he hoped to create. In other words, even Sabsabi acknowledged that some people would leave with a different impression than he intended.
This ambiguity is not unique to You. Another of Sabsabi’s earlier works to attract controversy was his 2006 video installation Thank You Very Much, which combined footage of the September 11 terrorist attacks with a clip of then US President George W Bush saying the words “Thank you very much.”
While Sabsabi has since claimed the work was intended as a critique of how Western leaders exploited 9/11 to fuel fear and justify war, the piece offers no clear condemnation of the attacks themselves. Its ironic tone and ambiguous presentation have been widely criticised, with some interpreting the work as trivialising the trauma of 9/11 or, at worst, suggesting sympathy for those responsible. Like You, the video leaves viewers to draw their own conclusions, fuelling concern that rather than challenging extremist narratives, Sabsabi’s art risks amplifying them.
It’s also important to consider Sabsabi’s political views, which you didn’t mention. In 2022, he boycotted the Sydney Festival because the Israeli Embassy sponsored the event. At the time, he said his withdrawal was “out of solidarity with the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause” and mentioned that his family and his work are “tied by blood to Palestine.”
These are deeply political statements. They show that Sabsabi’s position on Israel and Palestine is far from neutral, which understandably affects how his art is seen by many Australians and the Jewish community in particular.
While Sabsabi has said he opposes hate and violence, he has apparently not directly criticised Hezbollah, Nasrallah, or any of the violence linked to that group. Instead, he has argued that his work has been “weaponised” against him, which doesn’t address the real concerns people have raised about how his art presents extremist figures.
You also claim that because none of Sabsabi’s recent work has caused controversy, there’s no reason to oppose his reinstatement. But when representing Australia at a global event like the Venice Biennale, it’s not only about recent work. It’s about the artist’s overall reputation and whether they are seen as someone who brings Australians together or risks creating more division. Many in the Jewish community have made it clear that they see this appointment as undermining social cohesion and conflicting with Australian values.
The concern here isn’t only about one artwork from nearly 20 years ago. It’s about the combination of Sabsabi’s political activism, his refusal to clearly distance himself from extremist figures like Nasrallah, and the ambiguity of his art, which some viewers understandably feel glorifies those figures. While some in the arts world may see his work as a clever commentary on propaganda, many in the wider community see it as crossing a line, especially given his public opposition to Israel.
You suggest that viewers need to try to understand Sabsabi’s intentions, but expecting the general public to unpack complicated curatorial messages isn’t reasonable, especially when taxpayer funds and Australia’s reputation are involved.
The Venice Biennale is not a niche academic forum; it’s an international stage where Australia presents itself to the world. With that comes a responsibility to ensure our representatives don’t, even unintentionally, create division or promote ambiguous messages about groups that engage in violence and extremism.
As Penelope Benton, Executive Director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, observed in response to Creative Australia’s back-tracking: “There’s been a great deal of writing, critique, by art theorists, curators over a long period of time analysing these works and recognising them as commentary on propaganda and mass-media. They were never an endorsement of terrorism.”
I’m curious as to why your article does not engage with any of this commentary, nor state that Hezbollah was not listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government at the time the work was made, in 2007 (a date the article fails to note). I’m also unsure why you don’t describe the original context in which the work was shown, namely Sabsabi’s exhibition ON’n’ON at Sydney’s Campbelltown Arts Centre in 2007-2008. As he himself explained in a recent interview with The Guardian, ‘You’ was juxtaposed with a second video work entitled ‘Too’, which contained Koranic verses: viewers entering the space were presented with the choice of heading to the right, toward the blinding light and sensory disorientation of Hezbollah propaganda, or heading left in the direction of spiritual enlightenment.
Visitors may not have grasped this distinction, nor would they necessarily have been pushed—as the artist hoped—to reflect on the role of the media in spreading propaganda. But that does not imply that Sabsabi glorified a terrorist or make him a terrorist sympathiser; nor does it make him guilty of expressing the kinds of “hateful, violent views” that Alex Ryvchin — like Sabsabi himself — rightly condemns. It simply means that for some viewers ‘You’ does not successfully convey Sabsabi’s intentions and can indeed be read in opposition to them, especially by those who make no effort to discern what those intentions might have been or to lend them any credence. This is unfortunate, but since none of his subsequent works have proven controversial in this way, and his Venice project will reflect his recent output, not works that are nearly twenty years old, I see no reason to regard his reinstatement as “fl[ying] in the face” of Australian values.