Australia’s representative at the world’s biggest art show has not one but two works on show – a major achievement and happy ending to a year of controversy and protest
“The horrible questioning of Khaled is over,” says the chair of federal funding body Creative Australia, Wesley Enoch, reading a message from Australia’s arts minister, Tony Burke, at the opening of Khaled Sabsabi’s exhibition, conference of one’s self, at the 61st Venice Biennale on Wednesday.
In Venice, at least, these words ring true. A crowd of international art world notables listens attentively from the brutalist black block that is the Australian Pavilion. Perched beside a Venetian canal, this sweet spot was snatched up in 1988 as the last permanent pavilion allocated among the 28 others in Giardini de Biennale.