Khaled Sabsabi's Art of Collective Becoming

Khaled Sabsabi, a Lebanese-born Sydney-based artist, was selected to represent Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale, but the government intervened to override the choice. The intervention cited claims that a blurred image of a former Hezbollah leader in a 2007 video indicated support for terrorism and antisemitism. The biennale curator invited Sabsabi to participate, and after arts-community outcry and an independent review, he was reinstated. His installations use painting, sound, and moving image to examine identity and collectivity through his life story and Tasawwuf teachings. He migrated to Australia in 1976 due to the Lebanese civil war, later developed PTSD, and worked as a hip-hop artist focused on social justice before becoming a visual artist in 1998.

"“I believe in the fact that the people hold the power,” the Lebanese-born representing artist of the Australian pavilion told Hyperallergic."

"Within a week, the government intervened to override that decision, based on claims that by including a blurred image of a former Hezbollah leader in a video from 2007, Sabsabi was a supporter of terrorism and an antisemite. In response, Koyo Kouoh, the curator of the biennale's main exhibition, In Minor Keys, stepped in, inviting Sabsabi to the show. Outcry within the arts community and an independent review led to Sabsabi's reinstatement to Australia's pavilion."

"His two installations - “khalil” in In Minor Keys and “conference of one's self” in the Australia pavilion - use painting, sound, and moving image to reflect on ideas of identity and collectivity, drawing upon his own life story and his interest in Tasawwuf (Sufi) teachings. Sabsabi migrated to Australia in 1976, at age 11, because of the civil war in Lebanon; living through that war left him with PTSD that he still deals with now, at age 60."

"“khalil,” the first work you encounter at the Arsenale, is a 40-foot (~12m) canvas-cum-screen shaped in a spiral; the viewer enters the space to see a mesmeric, flickering, light- and color-filled projection that complicates our perception of the painting underneath. “a conference of one's self” is its inverse: an octagon created by eight separate paintings,"

Read at Hyperallergic