‘Opposite of promoting terror’: Tony Burke backs Venice Biennale reinstatement of Khaled Sabsabi

Arts Minister Tony Burke has strongly backed the reinstatement of two anti-Israel artists to represent the nation at the Venice Biennale following Creative Australia’s stunning about-face and apology.

Artist Khaled Sabsabi, who will represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale, and Arts Minister Tony Burke. Picture: Anne Kucera, NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke has thrown his “full support” ­behind Creative Australia’s extraordinary decision to ­reinstate dumped artist Khaled Sabsabi’s appointment to the 2026 Venice Biennale, saying the Lebanese-Australian’s work depicting a dead Hezbollah leader does the “exact opposite” of promoting ­terrorism.

Creative Australia’s abrupt cancellation of Sabsabi’s Venice appointment in February caused fury in the arts world and snowballed into the biggest public relations crisis in the federal funding body’s history.

While confirming on Wednesday it had reinstated Sabsabi and his curator, Michael Dagostino, to the world’s most prestigious visual art showcase following an independent review, the arts body apologised to the pair for its decision that had “weighed heavily on many people”.

On Thursday, Creative Australia acting chairperson Wesley Enoch apologised to the artists for the “hurt and pain” he says they experienced.

“To Khaled and Michael – I’ve done it in person but to say it here very publicly – I want to apologise to them for the hurt and pain they’ve gone through in this process,” he told ABC RN.

“And though we will be stronger as a sector because of it, I know it’s come at a personal cost, not just to them, but also to a whole range of people in the arts sector. And I feel that we as Creative Australia need to help the whole sector learn some of these lessons going forward.”

Mr Enoch backed artist Lindy Lee’s assertion that Sabsabi’s work was “ironic”.

“This work is not about terrorism,” Mr Enoch said. “It is not about glorification of terrorism in that way.

“And those who choose to mis-characterise the work aren’t being honest to the intention of the work or the practice that this artist has – who is an incredibly peace-loving artist – in the way that they construct their images.”

Mr Enoch said the board commissioned a review of the decision making process to dump Sabsabi and Dagostino because it had “questions then about what were the processes”.

He said the report said there were “missteps, assumptions and misunderstandings” in the process that led to cancelling the pair as the Australian representatives.

“We’ve gone through a very rigorous process of looking at all of the options ahead of us and we’ve come up with this idea that the reinstatement was the best option taking into account all of those processes,” he said.

“One of the great things in the report … the landscape has changed so fundamentally in the last, let’s say, five years – but it could be even the last two years – when you think about the Sydney Theatre Company and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Festival or most recently the Queensland Music Awards and the Queensland State Library, some of these issues are coming up at such a rapid pace that the systems that were relevant to us even two years ago are no longer fit for purpose and so we as a sector have to be engaged in much more rigorous kind of conversations around the messaging the risk assessments and how we go forward and I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

In a statement, Sabsabi and Dagostino said: “This decision has renewed our confidence in Creative Australia and in the integrity of its selection process.”

Mr Burke strongly signalled his support for the arts body’s backflip, saying the evidence demonstrated that Sabsabi’s controversial past works depicting the 9/11 terrorist attacks and terrorist ­leader Hassan Nasrallah – who was assassinated by Israeli forces last year – was the “exact opposite of something that could be seen to promote terrorism”.

The comments marked a shift in Mr Burke’s rhetoric after he said earlier on Wednesday that Creative Australia’s decision to drop and then reappoint Sabsabi and Dagostino had been made at “arm’s length”.

Artwork from Khaled Sabsabi.

However, opposition arts spokesman Julian Leeser condemned Creative Australia’s about-face, calling its reinstatement decision “ridiculous” and a poor reflection of Australian values. “This has been a deeply flawed process from the beginning and has now led to a ridiculous outcome,’’ Mr Leeser said.

He added that to reinstate an artist and grant him taxpayer funds after he had “glorified” a leader of a listed terrorist organisation “flies in the face of these (Australian) values”.

“Tony Burke has serious questions to answer about the credibility of his agency, Creative Australia, in the wake of this saga,” he said. “When the government gives a wink and a nod to decisions like this it sends a signal that undermines our laws, weakens social cohesion and risks dividing Australians at home, while damaging our reputation abroad.’’

In his second statement about the reinstatement, Mr Burke sharply criticised Creative Australia’s risk management strategy: “The report to the board of Creative Australia has made clear a number of errors that were made by the board, with respect to the Venice Biennale.

“The most significant of these errors was the failure to properly have a risk-management strategy when some of Khaled Sabsabi’s early works were inevitably questioned. The failure to do that work meant that some works of art, which could have been defended, were not. The report has shown that these works have not been regarded in any way as promoting those involved with terrorism – the artist has made the same thing clear. If anything, the body of evidence says that these works are the exact opposite of something that could be seen to promote ­terrorism. Bearing that in mind, it makes complete sense that Creative Australia have recommissioned Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino. Their decision has my full support.”

In a statement, Creative Australia said that reinstating Sabsabi and Dagostino reflected the board’s “commitment to the important principle of freedom of artistic expression, supported by a strong, transparent, and accountable governance framework’’.

The arts funding body admitted “the decision the board took in February has weighed heavily on many people, most particularly the artistic team, and for that we are sorry.’’

The duo’s Venice appointment was withdrawn after former ­opposition arts spokesman Claire Chandler asked in parliament why a person “who highlights a terrorist leader in his artwork” was representing Australia “on the international stage?’’

At the time, Mr Burke said he was “shocked” when he found out about two contentious works but he “was not involved in the decision” to revoke the Venice appointment. “I was shocked to see some of the works which are online this afternoon,” he said on February 14.

The work depicting Nasrallah was originally described by Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art as “suggestive of a divine ­illumination”. The MCA scrapped this longstanding description after Sabsabi lost his prestigious Venice appointment. The second contentious work was a video featuring images of the 9/11 attacks and was titled Thank You Very Much.

Sabsabi said the works were a critique of media depictions of ideology but had been “weaponised”.

However, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said Creative Australia needed to explain why the artist was deemed “unfit” to represent Australia in February but “a suitable choice in July”.