Artists carrying Biennale momentum
Two artists with recent international momentum are shaping attention ahead of Venice: 60‑year‑old Khaled Sabsabi has been named to represent Australia, and Wael Shawky’s film‑opera Drama 1882 — a hit at Venice in 2024 — just opened in Australia at the Museum of Contemporary Art. (Sydney Morning Herald on Sabsabi, MCA premiere report).
Australia’s next Venice story is being shaped by two artists who already tested themselves on the international stage: Khaled Sabsabi is back as the country’s representative for the 2026 Venice Biennale, and Wael Shawky’s film-opera Drama 1882 has landed in Sydney after breaking out in Venice in 2024. (abc.net.au, mca.com.au) Sabsabi’s path to Venice was not smooth. Creative Australia dropped him and curator Michael Dagostino in February 2025 after controversy around older works, then reversed itself on July 2, 2025 and reinstated them after an external review. (abc.net.au, artsy.net) That reversal changed the meaning of his selection. Sabsabi was no longer just an artist picked for a national pavilion; he became the center of a year-long argument in Australia about who gets to speak for a country in contemporary art. (abc.net.au, artnews.com) He is 60, Sydney-based, and known for work that moves between film, sound, and installation rather than neat, single-medium objects. In Venice, that kind of practice matters because national pavilions now compete less like painting salons and more like full-scale environments people remember room by room. (smh.com.au, labiennale.org) Wael Shawky offers the other half of the picture: what recent Venice momentum looks like when it travels well. His Drama 1882 was made for Egypt’s pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia and ran there from April 20 to November 24, 2024. (labiennale.org, e-flux.com) The work is a 45-minute opera-film in eight scenes about the 1882 uprising in Alexandria that marked the start of British colonial rule in Egypt. Shawky directed, choreographed, and composed it, and the cast performs in classical Arabic. (mca.com.au, labiennale.org) That matters in Sydney because the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia is not showing a sketch or a sequel. It is showing the same Venice work in its Australian premiere from March 5 to June 29, 2026, which lets local audiences see the kind of pavilion-scale project that has been drawing the longest lines in Venice. (mca.com.au, barakatcontemporary.com) Shawky’s Venice run built that reputation fast. Gallery and press roundups described international acclaim around the Egyptian pavilion, and Sydney listings now sell the work as one of the most talked-about projects from the 2024 Biennale. (lissongallery.com, timeout.com) Put those two developments together and you get a clearer picture of the next Venice cycle. Australia is heading toward the 2026 Biennale with one artist whose selection survived a political firestorm and another artist’s recent Venice success now visible in Sydney as a working example of how historical spectacle can command global attention. (smh.com.au, mca.com.au, abc.net.au) So the lead-in to Venice is no longer abstract. One artist is carrying unfinished national debate into the pavilion, and another has already shown that a densely researched, historically specific work can cross borders, fill rooms, and keep its force after Venice ends. (abc.net.au, mca.com.au, labiennale.org)
