It’s interesting to think about how Creative Australia’s Board may have acted differently if they had had time to consult the history books before making their decision to rescind the invitation of next year’s chosen Venice Biennale Australian representative artist.
For a start – as we learn from art history academics like Dr Sarah Scott (Australian National University) and Professor Charles Green (University of Melbourne) in Green’s chapter within Kerry Gardner’s book Australia at the Venice Biennale: A Century of Contemporary Art (2021) – in 1958, artists chosen to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale were decided by the Prime Minister and ‘his art advisers’ (a defining aspect of the Biennale selection process that is very different to how things work now).
