Category Archives: Venice Biennale

Creative Australia boss forced to refute rumour he had resigned as fallout over Khaled Sabsabi dumping continues

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Adrian Collette sends all-staff email denying that he and the chair of Creative Australia’s board had quit amid calls for resignations

The beleaguered CEO of Creative Australia, Adrian Collette, has quashed rumours that emerged overnight that he and the chair of the body’s board, Robert Morgan, had resigned.

“There is a rumour circulating on social media that Robert Morgan and I have resigned,” said his email to all staff of the government arts funding organisation, sent just after 8.30am on Friday.

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Khaled Sabsabi pledges to show Venice Biennale work despite Creative Australia decision to drop him

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Artist and curator Michael Dagostino break silence following Creative Australia decision to withdraw them as representatives

The artistic team who were suddenly withdrawn as Australia’s representatives at next year’s Venice Biennale have broken their silence and suggested they will proceed with their exhibition without the Australian government’s endorsement.

Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino issued a detailed statement on Wednesday evening, saying they remained committed to presenting the work they pitched to Creative Australia last year in Venice, to ensure that the “voices and ideas behind it are not silenced”.

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Venice Biennale pavilion could be empty, Creative Australia chief tells senators

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Adrian Collette admits decision to drop Khaled Sabsabi risks having nothing on show but he and chair won’t quit

Creative Australia has conceded the Australian Pavilion at next year’s Venice Biennale may remain empty following its decision to rescind the contracts of the artist and curator it chose to represent the country at the prestigious event.

“We will be doing everything we can…to think about how we use what is a public pavilion to mount something of that is worthy in terms of its representation of Australia,” Creative Australia’s chief executive, Adrian Collette, told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday night.

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‘This could have all been avoided’: how Creative Australia allowed itself to be blind-sided over its Venice Biennale pick

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High-profile artists and curators stunned by Creative Australia’s swift abandonment of Khaled Sabsabi, the art community, and the complex nature of art itself

A week after Creative Australia controversially dumped artist Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representative for the 2026 Venice Biennale, Richard Bell still can’t understand the decision.

The Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang artist has a long history with the Venice Biennale and Australia’s peak arts funding body – in 2019, he crashed the prestigious showcase after being passed over to officially represent Australia. He’s shocked that Creative Australia would allow itself to be blind-sided by criticism of Sabsabi’s past work, and its refusal to answer predictable attacks with a nuanced conversation.

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Creative Australia says it won’t reinstate artist Khaled Sabsabi for Venice Biennale at tense all-staff meeting

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Exclusive: The western Sydney artist was dropped from representing Australia just days after being selected

The artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino will not be reinstated as Australia’s representatives at the next Venice Biennale despite thousands of artists calling for the decision to be overturned.

The chair of Creative Australia, Robert Morgan, and the organisation’s executive director, Adrian Collette, told an all-staff meeting on Thursday that the decision to withdraw the Venice contract to avoid a potential public outcry would not be revised.

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‘No artist’ will want to represent Australia at Venice Biennale after Sabsabi dumped, former museum head says

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Elizabeth Ann Macgregor says Tony Burke has questions to answer after Khaled Sabsabi’s offer was rescinded but the arts minister has denied involvement

The Australian Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale is likely to remain dark next year for the first time, the former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art says.

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor on Tuesday weighed into the fracas over Creative Australia’s decision to rescind its Venice Biennale contract to Lebanese-born Australia artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, just six days after announcing the pair would be Australia’s representatives at the 2026 prestigious international art event.

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Khaled Sabsabi dropped as Australia’s representative to Venice Biennale

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Amid political pressure, Creative Australia says deselecting the Lebanese-born artist will avoid ‘divisive debate’

Khaled Sabsabi, the western Sydney artist who fled Lebanon’s civil war as a child, has been dropped from representing Australia at the 61st Venice Biennale – just five days after being selected to do so.

Sabsabi selection for the 2026 showcase had caused controversy due to some of the artist’s previous works, including a 2007 depiction of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated last year, and a 2006 video rendering of the 9/11 attacks called Thank You Very Much. Shortly after the announcement, Sabsabi admitted to being shocked at being chosen, telling the Guardian: “I felt that, in this time and in this space, this wouldn’t happen because of who I am.”

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African and Asian artists condemn ‘humiliating’ UK and EU visa refusals

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‘Unfair’ rejection rates of up to 70% harm cultural diversity and create a ‘global apartheid’, say promoters and musicians

Musicians, authors, producers and festival managers have hit out at “humiliating” and costly visa-rejection rates for African and Asian artists visiting Britain and European Union countries, saying it is having a chilling impact on cultural diversity.

Analysis shows the UK last year raised £44m in fees for visa applications that were then rejected, mainly coming from low- and middle-income countries. The EU made €130m (£110m).

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Artwork commemorating Indigenous Australian history triumphs in Venice

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Prize for best national participation goes to Archie Moore, who becomes first Australian artist to win it

The artist Archie Moore has won the prestigious Golden Lion for best national participation at the 2024 Venice Biennale – the first time an Australian artwork has won the prize.

With this year’s theme of “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere,” Moore won the award for his artwork, kith and kin, at the Australia Pavilion. The work, which has involved the artist mapping a sprawling genealogy in chalk, concerns 65,000 years of Indigenous Australian history and nonlinear concepts of time and place. Below the vast family tree covering the dark walls and ceiling stands a white table covered in records of First Nations deaths, including those in police and prison custody.

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Insider art: Vatican sets up Biennale pavilion at Venice women’s jail

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Pope Francis to attend installation that includes short film featuring Zoë Saldaña and Giudecca inmates

Originally a convent dating to the 13th century, and once a reformatory for prostitutes, the Giudecca women’s prison, set on an island in the Venetian lagoon, will this summer perform a quite different role: as the official pavilion for the Vatican at this year’s Venice Biennale.

Pope Francis is due to attend on 28 April – the first pontifical visit to the Biennale since it was founded in 1895. In the women’s prison he will see a work by Maurizio Cattelan, who notoriously created a hyper-real sculpture in 1999 depicting Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite.

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Artists refuse to open Israel pavilion at Venice Biennale until ceasefire is reached

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Curators protesting against Gaza conflict say ‘art can wait but women, children and people living though hell cannot’

The artists and curators of the Israeli national pavilion at the Venice Biennale have announced their decision not to open until “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached” in the conflict in Gaza, on the opening preview day of the largest and most prominent global gathering in the art world.

A sign on the front of the Israel pavilion in the Giardini, or public gardens, in Venice, one of the main venues for the Biennale, conveyed the team’s decision – while the pavilion itself is guarded by three armed Italian military personnel.

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Surge of interest in Ethiopian culture boosts case for return of treasures, says Sissay

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Poet who is curating country’s first Venice Biennale pavilion says ‘part of the heart’ of the country was looted and is being held in museums

An Ethiopian cultural surge – including a first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale and the rise of stars such as Ruth Negga and The Weeknd – is making the country’s calls for restitution of looted colonial-era artefacts harder to ignore, according to Lemn Sissay.

The poet and author, who is curating the country’s inaugural Biennale pavilion, where Tesfaye Urgessa’s work will be on show, said the event would be part of a significant cultural push from the east African country and its diaspora over the last two decades.

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Sculpture of colonial officer’s ‘angry spirit’ returns to DRC as Dutch urge reckoning

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Carved wooden figure at Venice Biennale aims to spark debate about colonial blindspots in the art world

A statue depicting the angry spirit of a Belgian officer beheaded during a 1930s uprising in the Congo will go on display at the Dutch pavilion of this year’s Venice Biennale, seeking to spark a debate about colonial blindspots in the art world – and the Belgian pavilion next door.

The carved wooden figure of colonial administrator Maximilien Balot will not be physically present at the world’s largest art event: a screen will show a livestream from a gallery in Lusanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the artefact will be on display for the six-month duration of the festival.

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Venice Biennale 2024: Australian pavilion to explore colonisation, incarceration and First Nations resilience

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Australian artist Archie Moore will draw from his personal history – and databases including Guardian Australia’s Deaths Inside – to create a ‘site for quiet reflection’

Queensland-based artist Archie Moore has unveiled his intention for Australia’s national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in April: to transform it into an examination of the impact of colonisation and incarceration on the country’s First Peoples and a celebration of their resilience.

Moore is only the second First Nations artist to make a solo presentation in the 25-year history of Venice’s Australian pavilion, following Tracey Moffatt in 2017. While key details of the exhibition were still being kept under wraps at the press briefing on Thursday, Moore said in a statement that his exhibition – titled kith and kin – would be a “site for quiet reflection and remembrance”. It will draw on his Kamilaroi, Bigambul, British and Scottish heritage and present his family story as a distillation of Australia’s 254-year colonial history.

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Poland replaces Venice Biennale submission made under previous nationalist government

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Culture minister announces withdrawal of art project announced in dying weeks of Law and Justice party administration

Poland’s new government has scrapped the submission conceived under the previous nationalist-populist administration for the country’s Venice Biennale pavilion and replaced it with an interactive show by a Ukrainian art collective, provoking complaints of “censorship” from the artist originally tasked with the Polish entry.

The culture minister, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, who was appointed by centrist prime minister Donald Tusk on 13 December, announced the withdrawal of the project, Polish Exercises in the Tragedy of the World: Between Germany and Russia, on Friday. The project had been announced in the dying weeks of the Law and Justice party (PiS) government in what was perceived as an ideological parting shot.

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Venice Biennale’s new, rightwing director has art world guessing

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Meloni’s party is pleased by the appointment but Pietrangelo Buttafuoco has surprised before – not least by adopting Islam

When Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the incoming new president of the Venice Biennale, was once asked in an interview whether he was a fascist, the Italian rightwing journalist and public intellectual replied: “I am not a fascist. I am something else.”

After Buttafuoco was this week officially nominated to lead the oldest and largest cultural exhibition in the world, it is not just the artists, actors, architects, film-makers, dancers and musicians whose work will be shown at the coming biennales’ six events who are asking themselves what exactly that “something else” may be.

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Venice Biennale: women outnumber male artists in main halls for first time

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Black women occupy prominent pavilions with some venues showing work from non-binary, disabled and trans artists

There is no shortage of art’s big beasts in Venice, as the world’s most prestigious international art event, the city’s biennale, opens to the public.

Georg Baselitz has made works to hang in the 18th-century stucco frames that once held portraits of the Grimani family in their palazzo. Marc Quinn is showing in the National Archaeological Museum. Anselm Kiefer has covered the walls of a colossal room in the Palazzo Ducale with paintings encrusted with shoes, clothing, metal, and even a ladder.

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The show can’t go on: Russian arts cancelled worldwide

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Concerts, dance recitals and exhibitions have been postponed indefinitely after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted responses from the cultural sphere, with Russian artists and companies beginning to feel the repercussions of decisions taken by the Kremlin. Not only has Russia been stripped of two prestigious events – the Champions League men’s final and Formula One’s Russian Grand Prix –but an increasing number of performances by Russians are being cancelled worldwide.

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‘Bleak, marginal and unpopular’: Australia unveils divisive exhibition for Venice Biennale

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Marco Fusinato describes his experimental noise project as ‘discordant intensities’, with his curator hoping that people who hate it will ‘hate it right away’

Marco Fusinato is counting on his forthcoming show at the Venice Biennale being immediately disliked.

Outlining his contribution as Australia’s representative at the world’s oldest art show this week, the 57-year-old Melbourne-based contemporary artist and noise musician said Desastres was the product of a nightmarish two years enduring the world’s longest lockdown.

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I have seen the tragedy of Mediterranean migrants. This ‘art’ makes me feel uneasy

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The vessel that became a coffin for hundreds has gone on display at the Venice Biennale. It intends to stir our conscience – but is it a spectacle that exploits disaster?

On the night of 18 April 2015, about 180 kilometres from the Italian island of Lampedusa, a fishing boat capsized with hundreds of migrants on board. Among the waves and beneath the ship’s 23-metre hull, 700 passengers who had dreamed of a better life drowned in the waters of the Mediterranean.

Last week that giant, rusty vessel arrived in Venice on the occasion of the city’s Biennale art festival, where it went on display on Saturday in an installation designed by the artist Christoph Büchel.

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