Australia’s choice to drop Lebanese-born artist Khaled Sabsabi as its consultant for the 2026 Venice Biennale has triggered an uproar culminating in a string of resignations and petitions signed by a whole bunch.
Artistic Australia, the nation’s governing arts physique, introduced yesterday, February 13, that it had rescinded final week’s appointment of Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino because the pavilion’s creative group. The choice adopted an article within the newspaper the Australian and a parliament dialogue that scrutinized a few of Sabsabi’s earlier work that includes reappropriated footage of the lately assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and the 9/11 assaults.
In the present day, a number of senior officers and employees members at Artistic Australia stated they resigned in response to the board’s choice. Mikala Tai, who helmed the group’s visible arts division up to now 4 years, advised the Guardian that she had submitted a letter of resignation to Chief Govt Adrian Collette “in support of the artist.” She was joined by program supervisor Tahmina Maskinyar, who criticized Artistic Australia’s lack of “due diligence” and advised the Guardian she was “deeply disheartened that at no point was the artist’s voice taken into consideration” all through the choice course of. The UK information outlet additionally reported that former Venice Biennale commissioner, Australian funding banker Simon Mordant, has resigned as a world ambassador for the occasion and pulled his monetary pledge from the pavilion in help of Sabsabi.
“It is a very dark day for Australia and the arts,” he stated, additionally proposing to go away the nation’s pavilion empty in solidarity with Sabsabi.
Artistic Australia declined to offer any additional remark.
Along with the resignations, the shortlisted creative groups for the 2026 biennale pavilion launched a letter urging for the reinstatement of Sabsabi and Dagostino. Addressed to the Artistic Australia board, the missive referred to as consideration to the “rigorous and professionally independent open-call process” by which Sabsabi and Dagostino had been chosen. They added that the identical course of led to the appointment of Bigambul-Kamilaroi artist Archie Moore and curator Ellie Buttrose, who had been the primary Australian group to win the Golden Lion award for his or her presentation kith and kin in final yr’s biennale.
“We believe that revoking support for the current Australian artist and curator representatives for Venice Biennale 2026 is 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,” reads the open letter, which was posted on Instagram.
This letter was joined by one other signed, as of this writing, by over 800 artists, cultural staff, writers, and educators. Printed within the Melbourne-based artwork criticism platform Memo Evaluate, the second missive echoed calls to reappoint Sabsabi and Dagostino and accused Artistic Australia of “artistic censorship.”
“If Creative Australia cannot even stand by its expert-led selection for a matter of hours, abandoning its own process at the first sign of pressure, then what does that say about its commitment to artistic excellence and freedom of expression?” the letter reads.
