Australia’s cultural institutions are tearing themselves apart. Long a key battleground in the so-called culture wars, since the Hamas terror attacks of October 7 and the protracted campaign of retaliation by Israel that has followed, they have become the site of a crisis that at times seems to threaten their very existence.

On one side are those who insist that art is about aesthetics and appreciation, a space to contemplate beauty and refinement and brilliance, safe from the intrusion of the outside world and its attendant ugliness. On the other are those who insist that art and politics simply cannot be separated – and that any attempt to do so is in itself a political act, born of a particular kind of privilege.

It’s a contest that has been debated in academic circles for years. But right now, it is tearing at the fabric of our major cultural institutions, with sackings, boycotts, withdrawal of vital sponsorship dollars, cancellations of events and subscriptions and votes of no-confidence rippling through the sector like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

In the eyes of Ben Eltham, lecturer in media and communications at Monash University, it is impossible to conceive of a realm in which art is not entwined with politics.

“Culture is the exchange of symbols between humans, and so it is inherently political,” he says. “Beethoven had a few things to say about the revolution, Mozart was a pretty political guy, Shakespeare wrote pro-regime propaganda. There’s no such thing as an apolitical artist. All art is political.”

In recent years, identity politics – around trans rights, race and diversity especially – and the #MeToo movement have provided frequent flashpoints. Activists focused on identity politics have tended to threaten arts institutions with boycotts, protests and actions targeting sponsors. But since October 7, a new front has opened up, with the threatened or actual withdrawal of hard cash in the form of sponsorship or donation dollars.

Facing that very real challenge to the bottom line, and coming hot on the heels of the destabilising impact of the COVID years and the sometimes sluggish box office recovery since, management at many institutions has come down hard on any hint of activism from within.

It’s a stance that has put the leadership of institutions including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the State Library of Victoria and the Sydney Theatre Company – all of which have been accused of silencing artists for commenting on events in Gaza – at odds with the notion of freedom of expression that is generally considered sacrosanct in the world of arts and culture.

“What’s surprised me is the backlash against political speech,” says Eltham. “There’s been a very strong effort, in my view, from powers that be to clamp down on pro-Palestinian speech.”

Some arts organisations have made explicit public statements that their stages are not to be used for political purposes. “We support individual freedom of expression,” the Sydney Theatre Company said in a statement last year, “but believe that the right to free speech does not supersede our responsibility to create safe workplaces and theatres … We have emphasised to our performers that they are free to express their opinions and views on their own platforms.”

Last month, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra criticised guest musician Jayson Gillham for making pro-Palestinian comments at one of its concerts, labelling them “an intrusion of personal political views on what should have been a morning focused on a program of works for solo piano”.

Many artists might broadly agree with those positions, but some certainly do not.

“When you are hired as an actor, it’s your job to bring your interpretation and point of view to a role, to create and solve creative problems,” says Violette Ayad, an Australian-born Christian Palestinian actor based in Sydney. “Your point of view is determined by your life experience, your background and how you view the world. So I think the question is, can you separate your experiences of living in the world, and how you look at the world, from politics? How would that even be possible?”

When Ayad wore the keffiyeh, the Middle Eastern scarf now symbolic of Palestine, at each curtain call of Oil at the Sydney Theatre Company in November and December last year, it caused little excitement. But when actors Harry Greenwood, Mabel Li and Megan Wilding donned it at the end of the opening-night performance of The Seagull in November, it sparked a furore that continues to this day.

In its season launch this week, the STC unveiled a slate of 12 productions for 2025, down from 15 this year, a reduction it attributed to the roughly $1 million revenue shortfall stemming from the issue.

Even without a flashpoint like the conflict in Gaza, financial considerations affect programming. Many arts organisations lean heavily on tried and trusted fare in a bid to play it safe and keep subscribers happy, opting for a pleasant night out rather than a groundbreaking or challenging one. Of course, there should be room for art to provide a haven from the vicissitudes of the world – there’s a reason Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is so popular – but to remain relevant and to renew, it must also stimulate, challenge and provoke.

There’s no doubt that can sometimes be incredibly uncomfortable. Last December, gallerist Anna Schwartz and artist Mike Parr went their separate ways after nearly four decades of friendship and working together, after Parr painted the words “Nazi” and “Israel” next to each other in blood-red in a performance at her Melbourne gallery.

But despite saying Parr’s actions were deeply hurtful and made her feel sick, Schwartz said it would remain in place because she believed firmly in the sanctity of art.

“It is art,” she said, “and I have allowed that art to stay on the walls of the gallery.”

Many others in the arts community, though, have been less steadfast in their support of uncomfortable or unpopular discussion, particularly where the line between anti-Israel and antisemitic comment becomes blurred.

Law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler withdrew its support for the National Association for the Visual Arts and arts precinct Collingwood Yards last year over anti-Israel sentiments expressed by artists making signs for a pro-Palestine rally. One poster read: “Free Palestine from the colonising dumb white dogs!!! Abolish Israel!!!” That deal had reportedly been worth more than $1 million since 2021.

In February, sponsors withdrew from Adelaide Writers Week because the program included Palestinian authors. Head of Adelaide Writers Week Louise Adler was also criticised for programming a critic of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In March, the State Library of Victoria cancelled a series of workshops – known as Teen Writing Bootcamps – on the grounds, it claimed, of “child and cultural safety concerns”.

Management denied that the authors’ political views had any bearing on the call, though documents later unearthed via FOI laws revealed that the authors’ religions and their public statements about Gaza had been discussed at length by CEO Paul Duldig and members of the library board.

The writers – Omar Sakr, Ariel Rees, Jinghua Qian and Alison Evans – are now suing SLV for discrimination.

The pressure comes from the other side, too. When arts lawyer and curator Alana Kushnir resigned from the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art (ACCA) board in late October last year over social media posts in which she was critical of artists supportive of Palestine, she said she was concerned about the rise of antisemitism in the arts.

“I cannot continue to be part of an organisation that fails to address such a significant issue as antisemitism when it stares it in the face,” she wrote.

Just this week, the former managing director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sophie Galaise, revealed she was sacked over her decision to cancel a concert featuring Jayson Gillham after he dedicated a work at an earlier performance to Palestinian journalists killed – some of them, he claimed, the victims of deliberate assassination by Israel – in the conflict.

Galaise argued her sacking was unfair because the MSO had adopted a policy of neutrality on the issue, which the pianist had breached. Speaking on Radio National, Gillham said he didn’t know what it would mean to be a non-political musician. “What is that?” he asked. “A note repeater?”

For Paul Davies, campaigns director of the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance, which represents Australian artists, the hardening stance from some arts administrators against political statements is attributable in part to their increasing reliance on private money.

“These are public institutions,” he says. “They need to be funded properly, and that would go a long way to fixing this problem.”

But not all political statements are born equal, it seems. The MSO held a fundraiser for the Red Cross’ Ukraine Crisis Appeal, for example, without issue. “There were no objections to solidarity with Ukraine expressed in theatres and other artistic fora,” observes Louise Adler. “But when it comes to expressions of solidarity with Palestinians it’s deemed an inappropriate intervention of personal politics in an artistic production.

Both Galaise and Gillham are considering legal action against the organisation, which last year took almost $6 million in sponsorship and donations towards a total revenue of just over $41 million, with more than $14 million coming from government funds.

“This suggests there are people worthy of our solidarity and there are others that aren’t,” she continues. “What is revealed in these moments – whether it’s the hysterical reaction to a pianist expressing solidarity with journalists killed or an STC performer wearing a keffiyeh at their curtain call – is that in fact ‘politics in art’ is acceptable only when it aligns with the political and ideological interests of the donor class. That has dangerous implications for both our political and cultural life.”

But with the review sparked by the MSO controversy (to be headed by Midnight Oil frontman and former federal Labor minister Peter Garrett), these issues are at least and at last being forced centre stage. And that, says Eltham, may not be such a bad thing. “Some arts institutions have failed badly and revealed themselves to be cowards,” he says. “They haven’t stuck up for their artists, they bend the knee to the wealthy philanthropists who donate to them.”

He calls on organisations to back their artists, to support the art and culture they are there to produce, to safeguard and protect it and them. “Artists have opinions. They make art, they’re attuned to the world that they live in, they’re surrounded by symbols and cultural interpretations, their antennae are always picking up. That’s the nature of being an artist: they notice things.”

Besides, argues Violette Ayad, people don’t even mean it when they say artists shouldn’t be political. “They just mean they shouldn’t have to hear opinions they don’t like. This is why no one was outraged when artists rightfully spoke out for Ukraine, or in condemnation of the Christchurch massacre, or when arts organisations voiced support for the Voice and gay marriage.”

The conversation around what artists can and cannot say is important and ongoing, she adds.

“There is no democracy where there is no free art,” says Ayad. “If we value democracy, as I do, we have to be willing to defend it – even when it requires nuanced and difficult conversations.”