The federal arts body has sensationally dumped the team it announced last week to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale, capitulating to political pressure over the artist’s previous depictions of terrorism.

Creative Australia had called a crisis meeting on Thursday night after its selection of Khaled Sabsabi, a Lebanese-born Muslim artist from western Sydney, became a topic in federal question time thanks to works like a 2007 video depiction of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and a 2006 video rendering of the 9/11 attacks called Thank You Very Much.