Arts Minister Tony Burke has been lashed for backflipping after a controversial artist was reinstated to represent Australia at the prestigious 2026 Venice Biennale art festival.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin rebuked Mr Burke and Creative Australia for re-adding Khaled Sabsabi, whose art has depicted a former terrorist leader and 9/11 archival footage.
Creative Australia, the nation’s top arts council, moved to reinstate Mr Sabsabi and his curator Michael Dagostino as representatives to a prestigious art festival on Wednesday, later issuing a lengthy public apology.
They were dumped in February due to concerns over historic artworks, with one artwork, titled ‘Thank You Very Much’ (2006), depicting archival footage of the 9/11 attacks.
The second piece titled ‘You’ included footage of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declaring “divine victory”.
The sacking prompted outrage from the artistic community and became a public relations nightmare for Creative Australia’s board.
Mr Ryvchin said the reinstatement of Mr Sabasi “raises a lot of questions about process” after his works were deemed too controversial in February.
“Suddenly something has transpired in the intervening months to make him fit again, and worthy of an apology and reinstatement,” Mr Ryvchin told Sky News on Thursday.
“His artwork … (is) at best ambiguous and at worst flattering and honorific.”
The Jewish leader said he thought the artist needed to explain his intentions, particularly during the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Mr Ryvchin said Mr Sabasi had not clearly explained that he did not want to depict the terrorist leader in a glorifying way, but rather wanted to “stoke controversy and create debate”.
The Jewish leader defended artistic freedom of expression, but questioned if Mr Sabasi was the best Australia had to offer.
“It’s a question of whether this guy is the best that we have to represent Australia on the world stage,” he said.
“Is this the best we can do?
“What does it say about our artistic scene, about our cultural scene, and what does it about the arts as being a place of inclusion and tolerance, which it professes to be?”
Mr Ryvchin said the artistic sector had increasingly become eroded as its people harbour a “very narrow political agenda”.
The Jewish leader scolded the Arts Minister for being ambiguous and undecisive, and questioned if the move to reinstate the artist was odds with Australia’s values.
However, Mr Burke said the artworks were the “exact opposite of something that could be seen to promote terrorism,” and pointed to Creative Australia’s report to justify the artist’s reinstatement.
Asked about Mr Burke’s backflip, the Jewish leader said the Arts Minister referred to the report as revealing that the art was never intended to glorify terrorism.
“But when you actually read through the report, it doesn’t say anything of the sort. It talks about processes and the need to do things a little bit better and so forth,” he said.
“But in terms of the art itself and how it’s interpreted and whether it accords with Australian values and whether he should have been nominated in the first place to represent Australia, (it) doesn’t say anything about that.
“So the fact that he’s now been given this lavish apology reinstated, it’s a great victory not only to the artist himself, who appears to be of dubious character and integrity given the nature of his works, but also to people that revel in this sort of thing, that believe that the arts should be going more and more in a particular ideological direction.”
Mr Ryvchin said the artist representing the country at the Vienna Biennale was a “blight on our Australian culture.”
He said the country had “many wonderful, talented artists” who were far more deserving than someone who held veiled views towards terror leaders and atrocities.