The Lebanese-born, Sydney-based artist Khaled Sabsabi and the curator Michael Dagostino had their invitation to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale rescinded days after they had received it
Photo: Anna Kucera
It seems absurd that more than a year ahead of the next Venice Biennale, one of the major pavilions in the Giardini might be empty for next year’s event. But that is the dilemma facing Creative Australia, which is responsible for that country’s Biennale presentation.
Last month, it announced the team comprising the Lebanese-born Sydney-based artist Khaled Sabsabi and the curator Michael Dagostino as its selection for the 2026 event—and then, within days, rescinded the invitation.
An almighty row has engulfed the Australian art world to the extent that the pavilion has been thrown into doubt. So what happened? The Art Newspaper’s Australian correspondent, Elizabeth Fortescue, tells Ben Luke about the debacle.
Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst’s Embedding Study 1 & 2 (from the xhairymutantx series)
Courtesy of Christie's
A controversial auction of AI art concluded this week on Christie’s website. It prompted an open letter signed by thousands of artists and creative people asking Christie’s to cancel the sale and accusing the auction house of incentivising the “mass theft of human artists’ work”. We talk to Louis Jebb, The Art Newspaper’s managing editor, who oversees our technology coverage, about the sale and the latest developments in art and AI.
Elizabeth Catlett, Tired (1946)
Conserved by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Tired (1946), a terracotta sculpture made by the American-Mexican artist Elizabeth Catlett. It is part of the touring exhibition Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist, which arrived this week at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, after premiering at the Brooklyn Museum in New York last year.
We discuss the sculpture with Catherine Morris, a senior curator at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, who co-curated the exhibition, and Lynn Matheny, the National Gallery of Art’s deputy head of interpretation and curator of special projects.
Plus, experimental art from the Eastern Bloc and a sculptural installation by Terry Adkins
Plus, JMW Turner at the Tate and John Stezaker on Bruegel
Plus, we speak to the artist Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, who will be representing Iceland in Venice next year, and pick a work from the Matisse show at the Metropolitan Museum in New York
Plus, Heather Phillipson at Tate Britain and Ackroyd and Harvey on Joseph Beuys