Australian artist Ben Quilty described Creative Australia’s decision as “governance failure on governance failure”. He said Sabsabi was “a very beautiful, very peaceful man”.
“The thing that I found most extraordinary is that the work that keeps being brought up is 20 years old, and the leader of Hezbollah was a legitimate political leader in the Middle East at that time. It was 12 years later that his organisation was designated a terrorist organisation,” he told ABC Radio on Thursday morning.
A still from Sabsabi’s video installation You (2007) showing then Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
“To bring Khaled down for that is just mind-blowing, and a sad indictment on how politics and broader society end up affecting the artist. The artist becomes the soft underbelly, the litmus test, the first to be brought down when there’s an election cycle to be won and the political cycle is so fraught and so heated, and I think Khaled is collateral damage for this seething fury in the community at the moment which is totally out of control – and his work, and works like his, will only take the heat out of those arguments, given the opportunity to show his work.”
Quilty also said Dagostino had been “working tirelessly for marginalised communities in western Sydney for many, many years” and that both men deserved to be recognised.
Federal Arts Minister Tony Burke has denied he directed Creative Australia’s chief executive Adrian Collette to revoke the invitations.
A string of resignations followed, and there are rising concerns Australia will be unable to field a representative in 2026 as artists shun what they describe as a poisoned chalice.
More to come
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