Crisis talks put Venice jaunt on hold for artist who featured Hezbollah leader

Khaled Sabsabi with his works at Mosman Art Gallery.

Looks like our deep dive into the questionable early oeuvre of Sydney artist Khaled Sabsabi might very well jeopardise his selection as Australia’s representative to the Venice Biennale in 2026.

As we revealed on Wednesday, Sabsabi, feted like billy-oh by the rubes at Creative Australia, has a back catalogue of work that on at least two occasions featured prominent images of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Yes, art should be edgy. Yes, it should offend and challenge us. Blue Poles? A bunch of static soup cans? It’s how we end up with some Italian smartarse duct-taping a banana to a wall and calling it “Comedian”. It sold for $9.57m!

Khaled Sabsabi's artwork from 2007 featured as its centrepiece the dead Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Except it’s not just the use of Nasrallah’s image that sent ministers rushing to pile onto Sabsabi on Thursday but the apparent lionisation of the terrorist leader.

The fuss, as far as we can tell, is over one of Sabsabi’s video installations, archived by the Museum of Contemporary Art, in which beams of light were shone from Nasrallah’s eyes and mouth, “suggestive of divine illumination”.

This was set to audio of Nasrallah speaking at a 2006 ‘victory rally’ following Hezbollah’s month-long war with Israel. You know what they say: if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it’s probably outright hero worship.

Turns out that it wasn’t just us who raised a brow at Creative Australia’s choice of Sabsabi to represent Australia at the Venice art Olympics, as they’re known. Arts Minister Tony Burke backpedalled hard to distance himself from this mess on Thursday, telling us: “I was not involved in the decision. I was shocked to see some of the works which are online this afternoon.”

Arts Minister Tony Burke. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

We imagine he’s had words with some people at Creative Australia over this.

The arts council confirmed to us that its board was holding crisis talks about Sabsabi’s selection. Terribly embarrassing isn’t it? Just last week chair Robert Morgan and CEO Adrian Collette were speaking so glowingly of Sabsabi’s work. What was their line about him again? They said his art reflects “the diversity and plurality of Australia’s rich culture”. Who knew Nasrallah was so integral to that?

Happy to throw kerosene for once was Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who told parliament that “any glorification of the Hezbollah leader” was inappropriate. About time, frankly. Liberal Senator Claire Chandler helpfully noted that Sabsabi’s work included a series of 9/11 images, of planes knifing into New York’s Twin Towers. The title of that work? It was called, Thank You Very Much.

One imagines Morgan and Collette were right across all this while feting Sabsabi for his contributions. We suspect it might be curtains, then, for Sabsabi and his artistic team partner Michael Dagostino, a long-time supporter. Dagostino even backed Sabsabi during his boycott of the 2022 Sydney Festival, over its receipt of $20,000 in funding from the Israeli embassy.

Will it be curtains, too, for Morgan and Collette? Hopefully not before their next appearance at Senate Estimates.

Pressure on Dutton

Hard to accuse Peter Dutton of being yoked to the policy whims of his largest financial donors – not yet, anyway.

Last month it was billionaire Gina Rinehart who turned up the heat on the Opposition Leader over the Paris climate change agreements, telling our man in Washington, Joe Kelly, that it was “common sense” for Australia to break with the accords, a not-so-subtle hint for Dutton to ruminate upon. One assumes Rinehart’s made that point to him directly, as well, during their frequent fundraising engagements.

“(The Paris agreement is) costing our living standards and causing suffering for many Australians and if not abandoned, will likely get worse,” Rinehart said. “We need our politicians to walk away (from the agreement). That is not Donald Trump’s job or responsibility. It is ours.”

Gina Rinehart with US politician Vivek Ramaswamy.

Rinehart, who provided those remarks after Trump moved to withdraw the US from the accords, was the second largest individual financial donor to the Coalition in FY24, her mining company, Hancock Prospecting, declaring $325,000 in receipts.

The biggest was Meriton’s Harry Triguboff, with $590,000 in donations, while in third place was stockbroker Angus Aitken, who, like Gina, is openly calling on Dutton to forget Paris. We doubt he’s trying to get in Chris Bowen’s ear about it.

Aitken’s been going around town ridiculing Bowen, the Climate Change Minister, over his attachment to the accords, dubbing them “tokenistic waffle” and apparently calling Bowen “the stupidest politician in Australia”.

Asked if this was indeed his view, Aitken told us: “Well I find it hard to see how that statement can be proved wrong given what he has done to energy security and pricing sky high.” Views that Aitken expounded upon in a client note dispatched this week, in which he turned the screws on Dutton and claimed Australia’s humble cuts to carbon emissions have been dwarfed by China’s prodigious polluting. “It is mad,” Aitken wrote, “and Peter Dutton should exit the Paris agreement. What is the point of ruining your own economy when your larger rivals are doing the opposite?”

Two big donors on Dutton’s back about the accords, which Dutton seems reluctant to nix. Not long after Trump dumped the US’s involvement, the Opposition Leader said doing the same could harm Australia’s trade relationships and lead to European tariffs on our exports.

Not that any tariff risks are coming elsewhere at the moment.

Power lunch

Spotted! Former NSW energy minister Matt Kean and outgoing South Australian Liberal senator Simon Birmingham noshing in one of the many dark nooks at Sydney power-lunch capital, Mr Wong, on Thursday.

Were the two leading lights of the Liberals’ moderate wing plotting ways to take back control of the party from the conservatives? Or workshopping strategies to hold back the teal tide at the upcoming federal election?

Discussing last-minute legislative wrangling in Parliament, as part of Kean’s role as the head of regulatory affairs at Tim Bishop’s Wollemi Capital?

Energy Minister Chris Bowen sparked outrage in both Labor and Liberal circles by handing Kean the chairmanship of the Climate Change Authority last year, so was Birmingham looking for advice on lining up a government appointment before the election campaign kicks off?

We note that Bowen still hasn’t picked a new chair for Snowy Hydro, and there are a few other board and committee gigs that need filling before the caretaker period begins.

That one, at least, Kean ­laughed off when Margin Call made an inquiry.

But as to what the pair actually discussed?

“Just two recovering politicians and friends catching up,” he said.

But they all say that, don’t they?