Last Tuesday evening the CEO Adrian Collette was brought to the Senate’s Estimates Committee to explain his decision to rescind the appointment of Khaled Sabsabi’s to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale. In the week before this reversal of a decision, which Collette stated was previously taken after a rigorous process and delivered with confidence, produced an absolute uproar in the Australian artworld. Almost every artist, critic, art historian, curator and gallery director protested against it.
The whole sector was in shock and demanded that the Sabsabi’s appointment should be reinstated. Collette’s performance at the Senates Estimates Committee backfired. The outrage against his conduct has escalated. The overwhelming consensus is that at least the CEO, if not the Chair and the whole board should be spilled. How did it go from bad to worse?
Serious questions about the selection process and the general governance of Creative Australia have arisen. The timeline and sequence of event which Adrian Collette presented beggared belief.
He claimed that a member of staff was watching a live broadcast of the parliamentary debates. Liberal senator Claire Chandler raised the question about the appropriateness of Sabsabi’s appointment at 2:35 pm. At 3.30 pm Collette received a phone call from the Minister of Arts Tony Burke. In the 55 minutes between the question in parliament and the phone call from the Minister, Collette claimed that his staffer brought his attention to the question posed by Chandler.
They then went online to research the “offending” images. This prompted Collette to ring Robert Morgan the Chair of Creative Australia to discuss the necessary course of action. Collette insisted that the evaluation of a risk to the artist and organisation, and the need to call for an emergency of the entire board was all reached before the call from the Minister.
I am not aware of anyone who finds this explanation of the chain of action credible.
How can a process that required months of consultation be cancelled in less than 55 minutes? At no stage did Adrian Collette seek legal advice as to whether the termination of the contract with Sabsabi was lawful.
He did not refer to the expert panel committee to seek further guidance about the quality of the artwork. On the contrary, he called for an emergency meeting with the board which unanimously came to the view to cancel the appointment. We do not know what was said in that meeting. However, the following day, the only artist on the board, Lindy Lee woke up with regret announced her resignation. She claimed that the atmosphere in the board meeting was suffocating.
Greens senator Hansen Young’s demand for resignations cuts to the core of a very flawed governance process. There are serious questions as to whether Creative Australia has lived up to its own principles – to defend the freedom of artistic expression and maintain its arm’s length integrity from the government.
However, the recent changes in the selection process also raise another concern. In the past the expert panel were called to meet as a group to provide commentary on the respective applications and collectively deliberate on the successful candidate.
In general, it was process of open debate and the decision was made in a democratic manner. This process has changed. The CEO addresses each member of the expert panel individually. The experts present advice in isolation of each other. They have no opportunity to debate and reflect on the diversity of views that might be presented by other experts.
Collette informs us that he made his decision to appoint Sabsabi after he received the comments that were presented to him by the expert panel. Yet, we are not clear about the method by which a final decision is made. Is it the aggregate of all the views, or was it a captain’s call?
This decision-making process puts an even greater onus of responsibility on the shoulder of the CEO. It may lead to an outstanding outcome. As it did in the previous iteration.
For the 2024 Archie Moore was selected by this method and he went on to win the Golden Lion award at Venice, which is the closest thing to the Noble Prize for contemporary art. However, the opaqueness of this method also opens the door to abuse.
Will decisions on arts funding be based merit, or will they be forever prone to knee-jerk reactions to populist responses to art, and ministerial intervention?
*Prof. Nikos Papastergiadis, is a cultural historian and author of many books; his most recent is ‘John Berger and Me’.
