Turnbull blasts artists' boycott threat

An Abbott government minister has taken to task a group of artists who threatened to boycott the Sydney Biennale over its sponsorship arrangements with corporate giant Transfield.

"I think it's extraordinary ... the sheer vicious ingratitude of it all," Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull told ABC Radio.

The Biennale board severed its sponsorship agreement with Transfield on the back of pressure from a group of artists and their supporters, who objected to Transfield's role in managing offshore asylum seeker detention centres at Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

Transfield had supported the contemporary arts event since its inception in 1973.

Biennale chairman Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, an executive director of Transfield Holdings, resigned as a result of the situation.

Mr Turnbull said if the artists had a problem with the government's asylum-seeker policies they should boycott any arts events that accepted any funding from the federal government.

Biennale is also sponsored by the Australia Council, the government-funded national arts funding agency.

"Transfield doesn't make government policy," he said, adding the company was fulfilling a contract for the government.