Those who have already posted have summed it up fairly well.

When I read the enticer for the article I was left with the impression that there was some attempt to direct what topics (or viewpoints) artists were being permitted to express. When I read the article an entirely different picture emerged.

There was no threat to the freedom of expression of the artists nor of freedom of association demonstrated in the article. The author and other might remember that the government portion of the money that "they receive and have to live upon" is taken from others regardless of how those others may feel about the ethics or morals of the artists work.

How do you think some American christian tax payers felt about money taken from them being used to fund Piss Christ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ)?

How about government funds being used to display the work of Bill Henson whose work I know some have very strong objections to? http://www.acp.org.au/information

While artists continue to accept or rely on money that is taken from others who may have strong objections to the artists work you don't have the legitimacy to complain in the way you have done here.

R0bert

The artists' stance is riddled with hypocrisy, but moral stances don't have to be 100% pure.

Of course it goes without saying that there is little to no moral difference between government funding of the Arts Council and commercial funding of a Biennale exhibition - when both are engaged in morally dubious activities in regard to asylum seekers.

The artists made a point - flawed as it was. And the Coalition simply kept to its time-honoured record of silencing dissent against whatever the Coalition values.

But, as others here have pointed out, nowhere in any of this kerfuffle was the purity of artistic expression contaminated in any way.

Some more background on the boycott at http://theconversation.com/the-biennale-transfield-and-the-value-of-boycott-24155

R0bert

The truth is that the Belgiorno-Nettis family are very supportive and non interfering patrons of new art forms. The attacks upon them, and in particular the bullying/trolling of Luccas Belgiorno-Nettis daughter are disgusting.

And it says much about the gormless imaginative poverty that is 'contemporary' art, that none of the protesting artists even attempted to make and display a art work that expressed their views about Manus, that would be too hard for these malicious aggressive mediocrities