Venice: The head of Australia’s peak arts agency believes the creative sector must prepare for more political storms over free speech, after fierce criticism of artist Khaled Sabsabi led to him being temporarily dumped as the nation’s choice for the Venice Biennale.
Creative Australia chair Wesley Enoch admitted the sudden dumping was unfair and held lessons for all arts organisations, as he and others gathered to celebrate the opening of Sabsabi’s major works at the world’s biggest arts festival.
Hundreds attended the opening at the Australian pavilion at the Biennale on Wednesday, on a day of dozens of national launches as well as a protest by activist group Pussy Riot outside the Russian pavilion, highlighting the intense political arguments at the event.
Supporters who helped fund the pavilion exhibition, including former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife, former Sydney Lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull, were among those at the opening, as well as philanthropist Penelope Seidler and arts supporter Simon Mordant.
The Turnbulls, who have supported the Australian pavilion over many years and backed this year’s exhibition, said Sabsabi had been “absolutely” unfairly treated.
“This sort of demonising Muslims – which is what it was – is not only wrong, it is absolutely playing into the hands of extremists,” Malcolm Turnbull said.
“I said this to [radio host] Alan Jones years ago, when I was in politics: people who want to wage culture wars against Islam in general, or Muslims in general, are basically recruiting sergeants for Isis.”
Creative Australia chose Sabsabi and Dagostino as Australia’s representatives at the Biennale in early February last year but revoked the decision six days later when critics in the media and in the Liberal Party claimed the artist supported Hezbollah, a listed terrorist group.
The furore came in the lead-up to the federal election, heightening the political anxiety in the government about the choice, but the cancellation was reversed in July after Creative Australia dismissed the original claims against the artist.
Enoch, who was appointed Creative Australia chair last July after the turmoil over the biennale selection, said the agency’s review of the affair held lessons for all arts organisations.
“The thing that I take on personally was that most arts organisations aren’t prepared for what is going on in this kind of media state,” he told this masthead.
“I think about Sydney Theatre Company, I think about the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Adelaide Writers Festival.
“There’s a whole range of arts organisations where we need to actually be prepared and ready to talk to sometimes what I would consider bad faith players in the conversation.”
The common factor in these cases was a protest about conflict in the Middle East and the public reaction. The board of the Sydney Theatre Company split over the response to actors who voiced support for Palestinians at the end of a play. The Adelaide Writers Festival board removed pro-Palestine author Randa Abdel-Fattah from the program, leading other writers to withdraw in protest over free speech concerns culminating in the cancellation of the 2026 festival. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was targeted by protesters after it cancelled a concert by pianist Jayson Gillham following his on-stage remarks about the death of journalists in Gaza.
Enoch issued a public apology to Sabsabi and Dagostino last July and told this masthead, shortly after the launch at the Australian pavilion on Wednesday, that the cancellation had been unfair.
Unlike other incidents, Sabsabi, who was born in Lebanon, was not criticised for a protest about the Middle East but for a work he produced in 2007 that critiqued political propaganda and featured a Hezbollah leader.
Enoch, an Indigenous playwright, theatre director and former Sydney Festival artistic director, said the key benchmark on speech should be the existing law.
“I mean, the law is a good starting point for all conversations there: what is illegal, what is not illegal, what is hate speech, what is not hate speech?” he said.
“I personally don’t believe that artistic expression is free of social responsibility.”
Sabsabi has described his installation – titled conference of one’s self – in the Australian pavilion as “a work that is open and inclusive… [and] welcomes all people”. He mentioned victims of war in the Middle East in his brief remarks at the launch.
“We would like to take this moment and pause with sincerity and empathy and recognition for all the innocent people that have been and continue to be dehumanised, displaced and killed in the Lebanon, Palestine and Israeli region and beyond,” Sabsabi said at the launch.
“These wars and conflicts are unjust and inhumane and go against the very most basic fundamentals of shared rights and human rights, of existence and co-existence.
“These are troubled times, these are times of uncertainty, and it takes a collective, en masse, to effect [a] reasonable, logical change.”
Seidler said the lesson from the experience was that art should not be silenced.
“Art must be free everywhere,” she said. “You know, there’s been talk about the Israeli pavilion and the Russian pavilion here. I think all art should be exposed. “Some is better than others, but you can’t kill art.”
The decision to revoke the invitation to Sabsabi and Dagostino was “ridiculous”, she said, as she queued in the rain with dozens of others to see the artwork at the pavilion for the second day in a row.
“It was internationally embarrassing. But my goodness, we’ve saved it.”
Art curator Michael Brand, the former director of the Art Gallery of NSW, said he had spoken to international gallerists who told him they loved the Australian work most.
“They are magnificent works of art,” he said. “One of my first reactions was: this is so beautiful and so powerful, this will, in a way, erase all the external noise that goes around it, and people will have a full encounter and experience a truly wonderful work of art.”
Art curator Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, who was director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney for just over two decades, said she had been “horrified” at the way Sabsabi had been portrayed by critics early last year.
“And it is a beautiful work. It’s meditative. It’s intended to bring us together. It’s not illustrative in any way. There are no obvious images. The human body comes through it,” she told this masthead at the pavilion.
“The two parts complement each other. One is about our inner selves, and the other is about outer selves.
“Some people might come and go and think it was just a few beautiful projections. It’s not. It’s a very complex painting. So technically, it’s extraordinary.”
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David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.
