Artist Khaled Sabsabi will not be reinstated as the Australian representative at the 2026 Venice Biennale. He was dropped as the country’s representative earlier this month alongside curator Michael Dagostino, spurring an international controversy.
The chair of Creative Australia, Robert Morgan, and its executive director, Adrian Collette, announced the decision in an all-staff meeting on Thursday, per the Guardian. Creative Australia is the government’s leading arts advisory body and oversees its Venice pavilion, which last year won the Golden Lion with Archie Moore’s kith and kin.
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Thousands of other artists had signed a petition calling for the reinstatement of Sabsabi and Dagostino, whose nominations were revoked on February 13, only days after its public announcement. The controversy started after the Australian newspaper published criticism of Sabsabi’s 2007 video installation, You, which features the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The writer claimed that selecting Sabsabi to represent Australia at the prestigious exhibition was a “creative form of racism.”
Sabsabi fled Tripoli in 1978 amid Lebanon’s civil war. His work frequently engages with themes of Islam and Arab identity and stereotypes, particularly within the context of Australia. Speaking on his nomination for the pavilion, Sabsabi told the Guardian, “To tell you the truth, I have applied four times and I felt that, in this time and in this space, this wouldn’t happen because of who I am.”
Creative Australia has since said in a statement that its board “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 through art and creativity.”
ARTnews has contacted Creative Australia for comment.
The cancelation of Sabsabi’s pavilion has prompted several resignations at Creative Australia, including the agency’s visual arts department head, Mikala Tai, and a board member, the painter and sculptor Lindy Lee.
In a statement addressed to Creative Australia and published in full on Thursday by ArtReview, Archie Moore and curator Ellie Buttrose called on Creative Australia to reverse their decision and provide “transparency on the Board of Creative Australia’s decision-making process.” The statement added that “the timing” of the reversal “coincides with politically motivated accusations questioning the artist’s integrity in the media and in Senate Question Time,” referring to a Australian Parliamentary proceeding in which its members can publicly scrutinize the government.
All five artistic teams shortlisted for the Australian Pavilion released a joint statement on February 14 in support of Sabsabi and Dagostino, calling their dismissal “antithetical to the goodwill and hard-fought artistic independence, freedom of speech and moral courage that is that the core of artist in Australia which plays a crucial role in our thriving and democratic nations.” Their call for reinstatement was reiterated in a statement from Australia’s National Association for the Arts: “Government interference in the expert panel’s selection process undermines the very principle of independence.”
Patron and former Venice Biennale commissioner Simon Mordant has also revoked support for the pavilion and stepped down as Australia’s international ambassador for the show, telling the Guardian that the controversy marked “a very dark day for Australia and the arts.”
