When art and politics collide: The battles tearing our cultural bodies apart

Australia’s arts institutions are tearing themselves apart. They have long been a key battleground in the so-called culture wars – but since the Hamas terror attacks of October 7 and the retaliation by Israel that has followed, the tension over the relationship between art and politics has never been more evident.

On one side are those who insist art is about aesthetics and appreciation, a space to contemplate beauty and refinement and brilliance. On the other are those who argue art and politics cannot be separated – and any attempt to do so is a political act, born of a particular kind of privilege.

A concert featuring pianist Jayson Gillham was recently cancelled by former MSO managing director Sophie Galaise.

It’s a contest that has been debated in academic circles for years, but it is the frontline managers of our major cultural institutions – such as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Theatre Company – who are now wrestling with this thorny issue.

It has sparked sackings, boycotts, withdrawal of vital sponsorship dollars, cancellations of events and subscriptions, and votes of no confidence.

Identity politics – around trans rights, race and diversity – and the #MeToo movement have provided frequent flashpoints. But since October 7, a new front has opened up, with the threatened or actual withdrawal of hard cash in the form of sponsorship or donation dollars.

Facing that very real challenge to the bottom line, after the destabilising impact of the COVID years and sluggish box office recovery since, some institutions have come down hard on any hint of activism from within.

President of Live Performance Australia Richard Evans says it’s not unreasonable for arts organisations to set boundaries around political expression on stage.

“This will inevitably vary depending on the nature of the work, the organisation supporting it, the time and place it happens, the conventions of the art form and the appetite of the audience,” he says.

“But every workplace – whether in the arts or any other industry – can and should set expectations for the way in which people can respectfully express their views to each other.”

Some organisations have explicitly stated their stages are not to be used for political purposes. “We support individual freedom of expression,” the Sydney Theatre Company said last year, “but believe that the right to free speech does not supersede our responsibility to create safe workplaces and theatres … We have emphasised to our performers that they are free to express their opinions and views on their own platforms.”

The Sydney Theatre Company leadership team: artistic director Kip Williams, chair Ann Johnson and CEO Anne Dunn.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Last month, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra criticised guest musician Jayson Gillham for making pro-Palestinian comments at one of its concerts, labelling them “an intrusion of personal political views on what should have been a morning focused on a program of works for solo piano”.

Some artists might broadly agree, but some do not.

“When you are hired as an actor, it’s your job to bring your interpretation and point of view to a role, to create and solve creative problems,” says Violette Ayad, an Australian-born actor with parents from Lebanon and Palestine. “Your point of view is determined by your life experience, your background and how you view the world. So I think the question is, can you separate your experiences of living in the world, and how you look at the world, from politics? How would that even be possible?”

Australian actor Violette Ayad has a Lebanese/Palestinian background.Credit: Steven Siewert

When Ayad wore the keffiyeh, the Middle Eastern scarf now symbolic of Palestine, at each curtain call of Oil at STC in November and December last year, it caused little excitement. But when actors Harry Greenwood, Mabel Li and Megan Wilding donned it at the end of the opening night performance of The Seagull in November, it sparked an ongoing furore.

The fallout continues. In its season launch last week, STC unveiled a slate of 12 productions for 2025, down from 15 this year, as it deals with an estimated $1 million revenue shortfall stemming from the issue.

Law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler (ABL) withdrew its support for the National Association for the Visual Arts and arts precinct Collingwood Yards last year over comments by artists making signs for a pro-Palestine rally. One poster read: “Free Palestine from the colonising dumb white dogs!!! Abolish Israel!!!” That deal had reportedly been worth more than $1 million since 2021.

ABL partner and president of the Zionist Federation of Australia Jeremy Leibler says people who fund art and artists or are consumers of art have a right to disagree and disengage if the politics of a particular artist offends them.

“It doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything you say on every subject matter,” he says. “But if fundamentally the position you take and the way in which you communicate that position is inconsistent with our values, we’re entitled to turn around and say, on that basis, we don’t see an alignment any more with us. It doesn’t mean, in every case, that the organisation or the individuals are antisemitic, or that it’s necessarily hate speech.

Zionist Federation of Australia president and ABL partner Jeremy Leibler.Credit: Penny Stephens

“I think that’s where this debate can get very confused. This is not about stifling freedom of expression. This is about those who are passionate and supportive of the arts making sure that the art and artists that they support broadly reflect their values.”

In February, sponsors withdrew from Adelaide Writers’ Week after the program included Palestinian authors. Festival director Louise Adler was also criticised for programming a critic of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Adler notes that not all political acts create a problem. “There were no objections to solidarity with Ukraine expressed in theatres and other artistic fora,” she says. “But when it comes to expressions of solidarity with Palestinians it’s deemed an inappropriate intervention of personal politics in an artistic production.

“This suggests there are people worthy of our solidarity and there are others that aren’t,” she says. “What is revealed in these moments – whether it’s the hysterical reaction to a pianist expressing solidarity with journalists killed or an STC performer wearing a keffiyeh at their curtain call – is that in fact ‘politics in art’ is acceptable only when it aligns with the political and ideological interests of the donor class. That has dangerous implications for both our political and cultural life.”

Louise Adler at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney in August.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

This masthead contacted major arts donors the Myer Foundation, the Hansen Little Foundation, the Gandel Foundation and the Besen Foundation for this piece. All declined to comment.

Paul Davies, campaigns director of the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance, says an increasing reliance on private money is part of the issue. “These are public institutions,” he says. “They need to be funded properly, and that would go a long way to fixing this problem.”

It is not always donors pushing the decisions, though. In March, the State Library of Victoria cancelled a series of workshops – known as Teen Writing Bootcamps – on the grounds, it claimed, of “child and cultural safety concerns”.

Management denied the authors’ political views had any bearing on the call, though whistleblower staff said they’d been told they did, and documents later unearthed via FOI laws revealed the authors’ religions and public statements about Gaza had been discussed at length by CEO Paul Duldig and members of the library board.

Four of the six writers contracted to run the Teen Writing Bootcamps (clockwise from top left): Ariel Ries, Omar Sakr, Alison Evans and Jinghua Qian.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

The writers – Omar Sakr, Ariel Rees, Jinghua Qian and Alison Evans – are now suing SLV for discrimination.

It’s also not confined to pro-Palestinian artists. When arts lawyer and curator Alana Kushnir resigned from the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art (ACCA) board in late October last year over social media posts in which she was critical of artists supportive of Palestine, she said she was concerned about the rise of antisemitism in the arts.

“I cannot continue to be part of an organisation that fails to address such a significant issue as antisemitism when it stares it in the face,” she wrote.

Last December, gallerist Anna Schwartz and artist Mike Parr went their separate ways after nearly four decades, when Parr painted the words “Nazi” and “Israel” next to each other in blood-red in a performance at her Melbourne gallery.

Gallerist Anna Schwartz and artist Mike Parr.

But despite saying Parr’s actions were deeply hurtful, Schwartz said the work would remain in place because she believed in the sanctity of art. “It is art,” she said, “and I have allowed that art to stay on the walls of the gallery.”

Former managing director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Sophie Galaise was sacked in August after her decision to cancel a concert featuring pianist Jayson Gillham. Gillham had dedicated a work at an earlier performance to Palestinian journalists killed in the conflict – some of them, he claimed, the victims of deliberate assassination by Israel.

Galaise argued her sacking was unfair because the MSO had adopted a policy of neutrality on the issue, which the pianist had breached. Speaking on Radio National, Gillham said he didn’t know what it would mean to be a non-political musician. “What is that?” he asked. “A note repeater?”

Both Galaise and Gillham are considering legal action against the organisation, which last year took almost $6 million in sponsorship and donations towards a total revenue of just over $41 million, with more than $14 million coming from government funds.

Sacked MSO managing director Sophie GalaiseCredit: Laura Manariti

When the MSO cancelled Gillham’s performance, musicians wrote to the board expressing no confidence in management and referencing deep cultural issues in the organisation predating this incident. The controversy sparked a review into the organisation, to be headed by Midnight Oil frontman and former federal Labor minister Peter Garrett. At the time of his appointment in late August, he said arts organisations were “facing complex issues around freedom of expression whilst maintaining long-term sustainability in a dynamic and increasingly highly charged environment”.

“If we get this right,” said Garrett, “the review may also serve a broader purpose for others who will inevitably face similar challenges.”

In the eyes of Ben Eltham, lecturer in media and communications at Monash University, it is impossible to conceive of a realm in which art is not entwined with politics.

“Culture is the exchange of symbols between humans, and so it is inherently political,” he says. “Beethoven had a few things to say about the revolution, Mozart was a pretty political guy, Shakespeare wrote pro-regime propaganda. There’s no such thing as an apolitical artist. All art is political.”

A reset, says Eltham, would be a good thing. “Some arts institutions have failed badly and revealed themselves to be cowards,” he says. “They haven’t stuck up for their artists, they bend the knee to the wealthy philanthropists who donate to them.”

Ayad states it boldly: “There is no democracy where there is no free art. If we value democracy, as I do, we have to be willing to defend it – even when it requires nuanced and difficult conversations.”

Former head of the Australia Council Tony Grybowski, who now consults to the arts industry, says: “Organisations and any board in the arts sector at the moment, if they’re not discussing these issues, if they’re not making sure they have correct policies and procedures in place so they’re empowered to deal with these things, then they should.

“Of course we want debate, of course we want issues put forward. But we’ve also got to remember there are different perspectives and viewpoints; this is not an easy thing. And at the end of the day, we don’t want to diminish the role of the artist or the organisation.”

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