Published: 20 February 2025
Last updated: 6 August 2025
Concept and research: Kate Lewis
Data analytics: Danny Companez
When Creative Australia reversed its selection of artist Khaled Sabsabi to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale, the art world cried foul. At the time of writing, 3626 people had signed an open letter protesting the decision as “artistic censorship”.
But there is a confronting double standard in the trending hashtag #ReinstateKhaled.
Some of the arts figures touting “artistic freedom” for Khaled Sabsabi are the same people who called for a boycott of Israeli artist Ruth Patir at last year’s Venice Biennale.
The Jewish Independent has conducted a data analysis of the letter in support of Sabsabi, comparing it to an open letter signed by 24,076 individuals calling for the deplatforming of the Israeli Pavilion at the 2024 Biennale and the cancellation of Israel’s Biennale artist Ruth Patir.
At least 211 names appear on both lists. (Some names may have been omitted due to differences in the formats of signatures on the two lists).
Synthesising the two lists reveals a double standard in the attitudes of the arts community. Apparently artistic freedom is essential for a Lebanese Australian, even if his work appears to celebrate terrorism, but not for an Israeli, whose exhibition was about fertility and motherhood.
Comments12
Martin19 December at 09:26 am
Those Australian artists who call for a boycott of Jewish and Israeli artists should start boycotting themselves. After all, by living in Australia they continue to ‘occupy’ land of indigenous people ‘colonial settlers’ country that dispa
stephen lenn25 February at 05:09 am
The creative proponents of artistic freedom paint a very nice portrait venal hypocrisy
Michael23 February at 09:30 am
Thankyou for the detail. The data, facts and detail here make the talking points in this article much more able to be accepted for what they are, truth of hypocrisy, rather than allowing some to brush this off as an opinion.
Gina Cohen21 February at 11:18 pm
Important article and expertly researched by Lewis.
Joe Dante21 February at 10:02 am
Really insightful research
Viv Yankel21 February at 09:56 am
Great article, obviously due to the excellent and thorough research required for this topic.
Anna21 February at 09:09 am
Well said. Can hear your voice here Kate Lewis – bravo!
ilurum21 February at 03:44 am
Many good points, but have you seen Sabsadi’s earlier work. No. It does not support terrorism. Nor did his proposed work for Venice. Please do not perpetuate uninformed readings of unseen or unmade works, as it does no favours for your otherwise reasonable arguments.
Lu20 February at 11:39 pm
Yes thank you for this interesting article on artistic hypocrisy . It would be good if those hypocrites would read it.
Michael Jaku20 February at 11:27 pm
I trust that these revelatory findings and conclusions are published more widely than just your readership.
Ben20 February at 08:58 am
Yes. Yes. Yes. Very well articulated Deborah. Thank you.
Rachel Sussman20 February at 06:28 am
Thank you for a very brave article that questions the position of the artistic world. I could not agree more. Well done.