‘No time for grudges’: artist duo’s eyes set on Venice
Before they leave for the world’s most prestigious art fair, a visual artist and a curator have no time to hold a grudge against the detractors campaigning to cancel them.
Khaled Sabsabi was given the honor of exhibiting in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale and in the Australian Pavilion.
This came after he and his collaborator Michael Dagostino had their official entry into the country canceled in February 2025.
Sabsabi talked about how seeing his spiritual guide recently in Lebanon rooted him after the debacle.
“When I sat down with my sheikh, we talked about what it means to love someone who may have upset you or disrespected you,” she said.
“In the end, it became clear: If the divine and the creative are built on compassion and empathy, then why shouldn’t a human be able to aspire to those qualities?”
He described his upcoming installations as “a single body with two limbs.”
The pair left the party after Sabsabi’s first two artworks, one depicting slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the other depicting the September 11 attacks, were criticized by conservative MPs in the federal parliament.
This started a chain reaction.
Days after national arts funding body Creative Australia enthusiastically announced them as the country’s representative to Venice, it annulled their selection and tore up a major contract.
At the time, CEO Adrian Collette said the board’s decision was made on the grounds that the selection of Sabsabi and Dagostino would lead to a “prolonged and divisive debate.”
Arts Minister Tony Burke distanced himself from the decision, denying any political interference and admitted he spoke to the CEO hours before the board meeting that decided the artists’ fate.
The cancellation backfired spectacularly, with more than 4000 people, including some of Australia’s most respected artists, calling for the duo to be reinstated.
After Creative Australia president Robert Morgan retired, he was replaced by Indigenous playwright Wesley Enoch; he also apologized and reinstated the pair after an independent review.
“We don’t have time for grudges, life is too short,” Dagostino told AAP.
At an exciting turning point, the duo has been further strengthened by the social support and solidarity of the arts sector.
Sabsabi said, “Without the support of the public, we could not have produced these two works, and this is a first.”
Mr Burke described the acclaim received by February’s rare Venice Biennale as a huge win and “another example of Australian art being recognized globally”.
Touching on the subject of spirituality and migration, Sabsabi said that his work titled “self-conference” encourages the audience to be open-minded and courageous.
“I bring this back to the individual; it’s about being emotionally inspired and being able to have moments of reflection and pause,” he said.
The duo emphasized that their artistic experiences are shaped and grounded in the cultural diversity of western Sydney, which will be showcased to an international audience.
Approximately 700,000 visitors come to the biennial annually, and artists from 99 countries are represented in the 2026 edition.
The artworks are housed in pavilions across the expansive gardens. Australia is one of 30 countries with a permanent lodge.
Dagostino, who also heads the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, said Sabsabi’s latest work was about “what unites us rather than what divides us”.
“Khaled’s work has no fixed status… all works of art are read during the time they were created, and 50 years later they are read differently,” he said.
The 61st Venice Biennale starts on May 9.
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