Creative Australia has reinstated the artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino as Australia’s artistic team for the 2026 Venice Biennale after an independent external review of the decision.
The pair had been dumped from the prestigious art exhibition earlier this year after Creative Australia’s board took the unprecedented decision to revoke their appointment.
“Today, we were officially informed by Creative Australia that we have been recommissioned as the Artistic Team for the Australia Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale,” the team said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We accept this invitation and welcome the opportunity to represent our country on this prestigious international stage.”
Just days after their selection was made public in February and following negative media and political commentary about two of Sabsabi’s artworks dating back nearly 20 years, Creative Australia’s board rescinded their contract, saying it wanted to avoid a “divisive debate”.
The artistic duo said the decision had renewed their confidence in Creative Australia and “in the integrity of its selection process”.
“It offers a sense of resolution and allows us to move forward with optimism and hope after a period of significant personal and collective hardship,” their statement said.
“We acknowledge that this challenging journey has impacted not only us, but also our families, friends, the staff at Creative Australia, and many others across the broader artistic community here and abroad.
“We would not have reached this point without the unwavering support of the Australian and international creative community.”
The Creative Australia board’s decision to dump them garnered widespread condemnation and criticism within the artistic world, with hundreds signing petitions calling for their reinstatement.
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Creative Australia’s chief executive, Adrian Collette, and the board’s chair, Robert Morgan, told a Senate inquiry earlier this year they had no intention to resign over the controversy. In May Morgan announced he would retire.
The review, conducted by board advisory firm Blackhall & Pearl, found there was no single or predominant failure of process, governance or decision-making that resulted in the decision to rescind the selection.
“There were, however, a series of missteps, assumptions and missed
opportunities that meant neither the leadership of Creative Australia, nor the Board, were well placed to respond to, and manage in a considered way, any criticism or controversy that might emerge in relation to the selection decision.”
The inquiry concluded that there was no one at Creative Australia who was adequately prepared for a “potentially divisive controversy” around the appointment, but that failure was not the fault of any one person or group of individuals.
The lack of preparedness had led to a series of errors exacerbated by a lack of clarity around Creative Australia employees’ roles and accountabilities, and by “unresolved tensions within Creative Australia on the organisation’s roles and stakeholders and how best to balance these if they are in competition”.
“There is an unfortunate irony in that many of the flaws in the Biennale selection process stemmed from a strong desire within Creative Australia to keep decisions on artistic merit free from non-artistic considerations,” the report concluded.
“This has been seen as critical to protect freedom of expression and the creative community. In fact, the lack of appropriate preparedness for such a major decision as Australian representation at the Venice Biennale has led to a considerably worse outcome for all involved than if prudent, carefully considered risk assessment and crisis management had been put in place.”
The report said Creative Australia had “a considerable task” to rebuild trust with at least some parts of the creative community and with some of its own employees.
The arts minister, Tony Burke, told the ABC on Wednesday he had spoken to the organisation’s board last week after the external review had been completed, telling them “whatever you decide I’ll back you”.
In February Burke publicly expressed shock over two of Sabsabi’s past artworks mere hours before an emergency board meeting was held and the pair were unceremoniously dumped.
One was a 2006 work Thank You Very Much, which used archival footage of the 9/11 attacks alongside a clip of George W Bush, and which Sabsabi said was a “critique of the brutalisation and the savageness of war”. The other, You (2007), is held in the Museum of Contemporary Art’s collection and included footage of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declaring “divine victory” in an address after the 34-day Lebanon-Israel war. The artwork was made as the Lebanese-Australian artist grappled with the scale of destruction caused to his birth country.
Speaking on Wednesday after their reinstatement, Burke said “the works are quite explicable but at first glance both of them looked deeply offensive”.
He said there had been a failure of “due diligence” and he as minister should have been briefed about Sabsabi’s back catalogue so he could have defended him.
“The artist himself says there is nothing in this that’s meant to, in any way, endorse terrorism … I don’t think politicians can say, ‘well you’re wrong’,” he said.
Collette issued an apology on Wednesday, acknowledging the decision the board took in February had weighed heavily on many people, particularly the artistic team.
“For that we are sorry,” he said in an emailed statement.
“We are also sorry that this has caused concern and uncertainty for many in the broader arts community and we are committed to rebuilding trust in our processes for the commissioning of the Venice Biennale.”
He added the Blackhall & Pearl review had “shone a valuable light on our processes, and we have learned from that and taken a path that reflects the necessary evaluations and risk analysis recommended by the review”.
The philanthropist and prominent arts advocate Simon Mordant, who resigned as Australia’s international ambassador for the 2026 Venice Biennale after the decision to remove Sabsabi and Dagostino was announced, said on Wednesday he had reaccepted the role.
The acting Greens leader, Sarah Hanson-Young, told ABC on Wednesday that Creative Australia had “disgraced themselves” through the process, which caused “hurt, pain and suffering”.
“The integrity of the artists involved has been questioned throughout this process. And it has been a shambles and an absolute cluster … people need to be held to account for this.”
