A month ago, Svaboda reported how the Palace of Arts wanted to remove the works of "politically unreliable" artists.

The pressure on the creators continues and is gaining strength, the blacklists are being replenished, says Svoboda's interlocutor.

"They call (organizers of exhibitions. — RS) from the Ministry of Culture, ask them to send lists of participants, they say: "This should be removed, and this one."

Often it's not even for the works themselves, but for the nicknames: who participated in the protests, fasted something, "lit up" somewhere, although the works can be completely neutral," a source close to Belarusian art tells Svaboda.

According to the interlocutor, theoretically, artists have the opportunity to exhibit in private galleries, but this is dangerous for the owners of the latter.

"If it is known that the artist is on these lists ("black lists" of unreliable creators. - RS), then it is better not to exhibit him or to try to exhibit something neutral, so that no hint is missed anywhere.

Here in Hrodna there was an exhibition in a shopping center, in a private gallery, it literally hung for one day, - says the interlocutor.

- The exhibition was closed, and the gallery itself after it.

Therefore, everyone tries not to take risks.

Well, what's the point if you spend a lot of time and effort preparing the exhibition, and on the same day it will be closed?"

"Artists now have to paint something 'patriotic'"

The interlocutor says that now the organization of exhibitions and artistic life in Belarus is strongly influenced by pro-government activists.

"This is an organization of active comrades who do not understand anything, but believe that they can dictate their conditions to everyone," the interlocutor says.

- Actually, it already is.

People, generally far from art, set the tone.

Often they write letters, denunciations, not just to remove the exhibition or works, but with appeals to "figure it out", put them in prison and so on."

"These comrades have a peculiar opinion about art, for them even just abstraction is a Western influence.

In their opinion, artists should paint socialist realism, realism, preferably something patriotic.

To show how we all live well here, or about the Great Patriotic War.

And everything else is a Western contagion and all this must be eradicated.

They are fighting with the Latin language, they believe that they are oppressing the Russian language and culture," the source explains.

The interlocutor adds that almost all imported art exhibitions are Russian, because there is nowhere else to take them.

Also, a big problem is that people loyal to the government remained in the management of cultural institutions, while professionals were dismissed.

"Now there are few bright and interesting works, often masters and professionals cannot exhibit and their place is taken by some nonsense.

As much as possible, everyone (artists disloyal to the authorities. — RS) is slowly disbanding, it's sad.

It is unclear whether they will return."

"Publishing work even on social networks is dangerous"

Now artists in Belarus have found themselves in a situation where they cannot actually show their works to anyone, says the source.

"As it turns out, in Belarus it is impossible to exhibit many things, in Russia it is a "shoddy", in Europe it is impossible to exhibit categorical artistic statements about the current political situation, the war, etc. (because of the danger of further persecution in Belarus. — RS).

You can only show with a wink and vague hints if you don't want to "sit down".

In general, there is no possibility of interaction with the viewer, because publishing works on social networks is also dangerous.

Pro-government activists carefully monitor everything and decide what is good, what is bad, what has the right to live and what does not.

And here we are not talking about the work of artists, but about the person."

The interlocutor mentions as an example the work of the Belarusian artist Natalya Sukhaverhova, who supports the regime.

"She makes every effort to clean the Belarusian art space from unwanted elements (according to the interlocutor, they include supporters not only of democracy, but also of modern art. — RS).

He believes that art exists in order to educate patriotism, promote Christian and family values, and broadcast state ideology."