Khaled Sabsabi hits back at critics as Venice Biennale opens

Venice: Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi has confronted his critics upon the long-awaited launch of his major new works at the Venice Biennale, declaring that he stands for “open and inclusive” art despite the political storm that swept over him in 2025.

Speaking at a preview of the world’s biggest art fair, Sabsabi said he rejected hate-based violence and drew on Sufi teachings to create installations that encouraged contemplation and reflection.

The opening in Venice is the culmination of an astonishing process that began with his official selection in February, which was rescinded days later, followed by the resignation of arts officials in his support and an extraordinary campaign to restore him as Australia’s representative at the event.

Targeted by critics for work he produced in 2007 that featured the leader of Lebanese group Hezbollah – listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia and elsewhere – Sabsabi rejected the way they described his work.

“I’m not one-sided in my art. I do not support any form of hate-based violence and never have,” he told this masthead.

“What I do support is healthy conversations to be had, because it’s only through conversation that we’ll be able to collectively, as human beings, get a sense of understanding of each other.”

Australia has invested heavily in its pavilion in the central precinct of the biennale in gardens near St Mark’s Square, gaining a prestigious location for the artist chosen every two years to represent the country.

Sabsabi and his creative partner, curator Michael Dagostino, have emerged from last year’s tumult with the rare honour of having their work featured in the main exhibition space at the event, chosen by the curator for the entire event, as well as at the Australian pavilion.

In the Australian pavilion, visitors encounter a multimedia installation of vivid colours beneath a bright white light, with a soundscape that generates a constant hum and is edited from a recording made in the artist’s home suburbs of western Sydney.

The work uses eight large panels to show images based on painting and video, constantly changing in brightness and colour as visitors walk around the installation in the dark.

“It’s a work that is open and inclusive. It is a work that welcomes all people,” Sabsabi said in an interview at the pavilion on the pre-opening day for international media.

“It’s a work that doesn’t sit in any fixed or polarised position; even right at the offset, as you enter, there’s not one entry, one exit – they are interchangeable.

“It’s a space of contemplation. It’s a space of reflection.”

Born in northern Lebanon in 1965, Sabsabi came to Australia with his parents at the age of 12 and emerged as an artist in the 1990s. Some of his later work has been influenced by his interest in Sufism, a mystical religious practice within Islam.

The soundscape in his work at the Australian pavilion uses edited audio to create a meditative hum.

“I don’t like to reveal everything but what I can say is it’s taken from an everyday gathering situation in western Sydney that many people attend,” he said.

“I’ve always had the idea that beauty exists in the everyday – beauty and knowledge and the sacred exists in the everyday.”

Asked if a work of art had to have a spiritual dimension to have lasting value, Sabsabi said he thought about the relationship between the creator and the creation.

“You can take that from a religious point of view, right, or you can take it from a practical artist’s point of view.

“For me, that moment when the creator makes an object, the creation, I find something very fascinating within that relationship.”

Dagostino said social and political factors changed how people might respond to spiritual or other aspects of a work of art. “Works fall in and out of relevance all the time,” he said.

“From a curatorial perspective, there’s very few works that have stayed relevant since they were created.”

While the work at the biennale has a spiritual element, Sabsabi and Dagostino acknowledge that faith is also a source of conflict – and a factor in the wars in the Middle East.

“If you start off with the notion of acceptance, and respect, it can lead to some sort of understanding,” Sabsabi said. “Every faith speaks about the divine love.”

The biennale opens to the public this Saturday, May 9, and runs until November. There is no date or location decided, so far, on showing the new works in Australia. “We’re working on that,” said Sabsabi.

International media saw the works for the first time at the “pre-opening” stage of the biennale on Tuesday, with hundreds of visitors seeing the installation and some sharing videos on social media. They also saw a companion work at the main exhibition of the biennale – the result of a pivotal decision by the curator of the event, Koyo Kouoh, to ensure Sabsabi was represented after the controversy last year.

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, the former director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, called Sabsabi’s work in the separate Arsenale show “astounding” and “stunning” when she saw it on Tuesday, and shared it on Instagram.

While the Australian pavilion is funded by the federal government, this year’s exhibition was also backed by private donors led by investor and philanthropist Simon Mordant and a long list of benefactors including the Turnbull Foundation, set up by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Sydney Lord Mayor Lucy Turnbull.

The nation’s peak arts body, Creative Australia, chose Sabsabi and Dagostino to represent the country early last year but revoked the decision within days of the announcement after a media storm over a work Sabsabi created almost two decades ago.

In the 2007 work, Sabsabi featured a video of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that is listed as a terrorist group in Australia. A description of the work at the time said it used light that suggested “divine illumination” around Nasrallah.

When that triggered media criticism, and questions from Liberal Senator Clare Chandler in federal parliament, the peak arts body rushed to cancel the selection.

Sabsabi avoided commenting at length about the controversy over his selection last year, including the argument about his 2007 work, but he rejected the way it had been described by others.

“That work talks about the power of propaganda and how propaganda and ideologies multiply and distort and, over time, becomes fragmented,” he said.

“If you watch the work, rather than just get a caption off the work, you will see that it starts off with one image and then it multiplies and multiplies and multiplies.”

The Australian pavilion was a relatively quiet corner of the Biennale amid a furore over the wider exhibition and whether Russia and Israel should be allowed to take part.

The biennale has insisted on allowing Russia to exhibit despite the war in Ukraine, triggering the resignation of the jury meant to select the best entries from 100 national representatives, because jury members wanted to exclude countries accused of crimes against humanity.

The Russian pavilion was the scene of thumping dance music at the pre-opening day as visitors enjoyed drinks to celebrate the inclusion. The victory was symbolic, however, because the exhibit will not remain open after the first days of the event.

The Israeli pavilion appeared to be closed, given the stand-off with the jury. Israel has been accused of war crimes in Gaza but it denies this and insists it is defending itself against Hamas, which launched attacks on Israeli civilians in October 2023.

The biennale organisers have not excluded Israel from the event, despite the stance taken by the jury members.

With the jury gone, the decision on the winner of the biennale’s major award, the Golden Lion (won by Australia’s Archie Moore in 2024), is being replaced by a popular vote from visitors on the best participant in the main exhibition and the best representative in the national pavilions.

Kouoh, the biennale curator, chose Sabsabi and Dagostino for the event’s main exhibition after they had been dropped by Creative Australia. Kouoh died in May last year but her team continued to prepare the biennale without her.

The outcome is that Sabsabi and Dagostino gain the rare honour of featuring in the main exhibition at the biennale as well as their country’s national pavilion.

Only three other artists have done this in the history of the biennale, which was founded in 1895.

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