The collaboration between artists and politicians is often difficult to sustain for long. This is regrettable because, despite differences in their day-to-day work, they actually have much in common. Both can be driven by pure ideals, and in pursuit of these ideals, they sometimes have to venture into unpleasant territory, requiring resilience and dedication.
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02-21, 2025Both the art world and the political arena are rife with factionalism, pitfalls, and insularity. Gossip and illicit flows of funds, as well as subtle influence, permeate them. These two realms are also populated by a wide array of characters, from geniuses, visionaries, and madmen, to the lowest opportunists, con artists, and peddlers of false promises, creating a dynamic and often unpredictable environment.
Whether politician or artist, both frequently find themselves at gatherings where they must flatter those who are richer but work less hard. To accomplish the work they want to do (save the world! explain the world! attempt to express with trembling fingertips some elusive truth beyond human vision!), they must also do things no one wants to do, such as fill out grant applications, fawn over wealthy people they dislike, or endure the unpleasant process of vying for a major party's preselection.
These two professions, at crucial moments, often either skyrocket (awards! bestsellers! hype! cabinet appointments! appearances on podcasts!) or fade into obscurity due to factors beyond an individual's control. Like artists, the best politicians may be well compensated. But behind this select few are countless others who have exhausted their energy and are now seeking other outlets, or volunteering their time at the local government level.
The greatest similarity between art and politics lies in a simpler fact. Over the past week, we have witnessed a shocking spectacle: a collision between creative independence and political exigencies on the board of the Australia Council for the Arts, the country's premier arts funding body. The result: political exigencies won an overwhelming victory in the first round, a point we will discuss in detail later.
So, what is the similarity? It is this: in art and politics, even a single image taken out of context, especially when decontextualized, can be powerful enough to upend the world. An artist's eligibility to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale was revoked because of an old work that sparked controversy, highlighting the potential impact of art on public perception.
Australian-Lebanese artist Khaled Sabsabi was nominated by the Australia Council for the Arts on February 7 as the 43rd artist to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale. Sabsabi will collaborate with curator Michael Dagostino, a well-known advocate for Western Sydney's cultural life. Sabsabi would be the first artist from Western Sydney to represent Australia at this event, hailed as the Olympics of the art world. Sabsabi would receive AUD 100,000, and Dagostino AUD 50,000, to create artwork for the Australian pavilion. Sabsabi had been selected by a panel of five independent experts from a shortlist of six candidates.
However, nine days later, at a late-night meeting, the Australia Council for the Arts board unanimously decided to rescind Sabsabi's appointment. This decision is perplexing. The Sabsabi of February 13 was exactly the same as the Sabsabi of February 7. He had not caused any controversy or engaged in any misconduct. His most striking comment was his "shock" at being chosen.
"To be honest, I've applied four times, and I felt that, in this time and space, it wasn't going to happen because of who I am," Sabsabi said, a prediction that unfortunately came true. So, what exactly happened? Future historians may be puzzled by this dramatic shift in attitude at the highest levels of Australia's most important public arts funding body. Unless they consider the striking video works that appeared in the media in the past few days, created by amateurs, but undoubtedly capturing something raw and terrible in the world we now inhabit. These videos also complicated the worlds of both artist and politician for reasons beyond their control.
Within a week, several videos surfaced: a crude clip from an obscure live video chat platform in which two nurses cheerfully discussed their desire to end the lives of Israeli patients while at work; CCTV footage showing a young man wearing a Star of David cap being dragged like a squid through Middle Eastern restaurants by a Daily Telegraph video team, attempting to provoke and capture anti-Semitic behavior; and the discovery and publication by The Australian of a 2007 video work by Sabsabi depicting the late Hezbollah figure Hassan Nasrallah with a halo around his head.
Shadow Arts Minister Claire Chandler questioned Wong in the Senate: "Given the shocking levels of anti-Semitism in our country, why is the Albanese government allowing someone who features a leader of a terrorist organization in his work to represent Australia on the international stage at the Venice Biennale?" As the government's leader in the Senate, Wong replied that she was "unaware" of the artwork. "I agree with you that any praise of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah is inappropriate, and I have expressed those views previously, and I will certainly get more information for you," she told Chandler.
Arts Minister Tony Burke, after leaving question time in the House of Representatives, immediately called Australia Council for the Arts CEO Adrian Collette to inquire about Sabsabi's work raised in the Senate. "None of the briefings I had previously received mentioned that work, and it was clearly more controversial than anything else," Burke told Sarah Ferguson on 7.30 on Monday night. "So, when I saw it there, I was shocked, and I called Adrian to find out what was going on. By that time, he had already decided to call a board meeting that night."
By 10 p.m., Sabsabi's Biennale trip was history, with the full membership of the Australia Council for the Arts voting unanimously to remove him, one member – the artist Lindy Lee – subsequently resigning. No one has commented on the matter. The board has commissioned an external review, but not of its decision, but of the art selection process, which was conducted by five industry figures who have expressed collective dismay at the decision and learned of the Australia Council's about-face through the media. All five unsuccessful artists have called for Sabsabi's reinstatement. None would accept the commission if Sabsabi cannot participate, meaning Australia's pavilion in Venice would be empty. This is an embarrassment, considering that last year Australia's entrant, Archie Moore, won the event's Golden Lion, making us, in sporting terms, the defending champion.
Burke insists he gave Collette no directions. But the possibility that the Australia Council's emergency board meeting had nothing to do with the reporting of the Nasrallah artwork or the Senate's indication that the Coalition would interpret the selection of Sabsabi as some form of endorsement of terrorism is almost nil. With an election campaign looming and culture wars raging, did a major arts funding body really need to be told explicitly how unhelpful it would be to a well-intentioned government that has increased arts funding to be associated with an artist who once made a video of a terrorist leader with a halo around his head in a volatile campaign?
Another similarity between art and politics is that both are spaces where multiple truths can coexist. Complexity and nuance are everywhere. Do Jewish Australians feel conflated with Israel and increasingly confronted by symbols of hate and intolerance that awaken familiar memories of the not-so-distant past? Yes, that is true. Do artists of color feel they are allowed into institutions from which they have historically been excluded, but on the condition that they remain silent about troublesome views? Yes, that is also true.
Art is better at expressing these nuances. Certainly better than question time. And the translation to politics is crude. For example, Sabsabi—a prolific artist who has created a vast body of work since the Nasrallah piece, including the 2017 video installation "70,000 Veils," composed of 10,000 images and taking 10 years to complete—is now defined by two lines of amateur art criticism in the Senate. Perhaps the problem is not the conflict between art and politics; it is that when they try to do each other's jobs, absolute chaos often ensues.
Sabsabi is an artist with political views. That much is clear. Both he and his curator, Dagostino, supported the 2022 Sydney Festival artists' boycott of the event due to its financial support from the Israeli embassy. In other words, they are art practitioners who set limits on the expression of artistic freedom. This was a political decision, and they were fully entitled to make it.
The events of the past week raise many questions, one of which is whether the unease felt by Australian artists at the mess caused by the Australia Council for the Arts will translate into a mass refusal of Australia Council funding, or the return of funding, just as even desperately cash-strapped artists refused Sydney Festival money after the lockdown. This would be an extremely significant outcome.
Other questions are more about process, such as: was the Australia Council unaware of the political views of the artist it enthusiastically supported in its selection (which would be odd for any sentient administrator)? Or did it actively decide to cast a vote of confidence in a merit-based selection process, letting art be simply about art, only to see it collapse like a house of cards at the first whiff of trouble? Does the decision to call for an external review of the selection process amount to an admission that it may be flawed? Is it a form of self-preservation? It certainly casts a shadow over the experts it recruits to apply for the review, the person in charge of the visual arts program (who has already resigned), and, of course, the successful artist, his colleagues, and his planned project.
We don't actually know what Sabsabi's Biennale project was. It was supposed to be kept secret until the grand unveiling. But the Nasrallah work has roared out of the archives, eclipsing everything. The ruthless primacy of the image—its power, the shortcut it offers to human emotion—has been demonstrated beyond doubt. Ironically, the whole affair serves as an advertisement for why we need art. It's just not quite the message the artist intended to convey.
