Artist and curator Michael Dagostino break silence following Creative Australia decision to withdraw them as representativesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe artistic team who were suddenly withdrawn as Australia’s representatives at next year’s Venice Biennale have broken their silence and suggested they will proceed with their exhibition without the Australian government’s endorsement.Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino issued a detailed statement on Wednesday evening, saying they remained committed to presenting the work they pitched to Creative Australia last year in Venice, to ensure that the “voices and ideas behind it are not silenced”. Continue reading…Artist and curator Michael Dagostino break silence following Creative Australia decision to withdraw them as representativesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe artistic team who were suddenly withdrawn as Australia’s representatives at next year’s Venice Biennale have broken their silence and suggested they will proceed with their exhibition without the Australian government’s endorsement.Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino issued a detailed statement on Wednesday evening, saying they remained committed to presenting the work they pitched to Creative Australia last year in Venice, to ensure that the “voices and ideas behind it are not silenced”. Continue reading…
The artistic team who were suddenly withdrawn as Australia’s representatives at next year’s Venice Biennale have broken their silence and suggested they will proceed with their exhibition without the Australian government’s endorsement.
Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino issued a detailed statement on Wednesday evening, saying they remained committed to presenting the work they pitched to Creative Australia last year in Venice, to ensure that the “voices and ideas behind it are not silenced”.
“In the coming weeks, we will share more information on how people can contribute to and participate in this important exhibition,” the statement said.
The pair said the 13 February decision by the Creative Australia board to terminate the Venice Biennale contract had set a dangerous precedent that undermined artistic freedom of expression. The decision was made after questions were raised in parliament about earlier Sabsabi works and the arts minister Tony Burke had made a phone call to the agency’s chief executive, Adrian Collette.
The decision had also undermined “the integrity of Creative Australia’s selection process which is required to be at arm’s length from government”, Sabsabi and Dagostino said.
They called on the government agency to publicly explain how the board came to the conclusion that their presence in Venice in 2026 would be “an unacceptable risk to public support for Australia’s artistic community”. They also called for a public apology to themselves and those who had been directly affected by the decision, as well as the art sector as a whole.
“We are profoundly saddened by Creative Australia’s cancellation of our appointment to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale. This experience has been personally and professionally distressing, as we were selected through a rigorous process and had already begun meaningful work on this important project.
“We were disheartened to hear that we would cause a ‘prolonged and divisive debate’ and ‘an unacceptable risk to public support for Australia’s artistic community’ and we would like Creative Australia to publicly answer how they came to this conclusion as many experts have come out publicly speaking about the early works as being ‘against ideology’ and ‘ambiguous’.”
At Senate estimates on Tuesday night, Creative Australia’s chief executive, Adrian Collette, said a brief informing the arts minister Tony Burke of the selection of Sabsabi and Dagostino went to his office on 31 January, seven days before the selection was publicly announced.
In between that brief being sent and the public announcement, Collette was alerted by a Creative Australia staffer to the existence of a work created by the artist some 17 years earlier called You. It was a video installation that featured images of Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah, a group that was only fully proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government some 14 years after the work was created.
The work You was not the tipping point however. It was another work, created a year earlier, that sealed the artist’s fate. Collette admitted that neither he or the board were aware of the existence of a work called Thank You Very Much – a montage of the 9/11 attacks with President George W Bush speaking the title words in the 2006 video’s conclusion – until Liberal senator Claire Chandler brought up the choice of Sabsabi for the Venice Biennale during question time on 13 February.
By mid-afternoon that day chair of Creative Australia’s board, Robert Morgan, was wrangling his board for an emergency meeting. Collette insists that by the time Burke called him, at about 3.30pm, a six o’clock board meeting had already been slated.
In a statement to the estimates hearing, Burke said that he was shocked to find out about Thank You Very Much but told the board it had his support whatever they decided to do.
Collette said he contacted Sabsabi and Dagostino to inform them of the impending meeting, and again to inform them of the meeting’s outcome an hour and a half later. At no point were the pair given the opportunity to address the board themselves. When Collette tried calling Sabsabi several times later that evening to put the wording of the public statement of his withdrawn commission to him, the artist did not take his calls.
Creative Australia has conceded the Australian Pavilion at next year’s Venice Biennale may remain empty following the decision.