Belarusian Generation Y logbook

April started with an unusual exhibition in Minsk called “DEPRESS and Arrhythmia“. It was a collection of drawings and graphics from Ihar Varashkevich, a blues-musician from the band Krama who also paints, and Nika Sandros, a painter who makes pictures of songs. The exhibition was a truly unusual event in the Belarusian art scene and made many people talk about it, especially if we take into account how rare we hear about modern art of Belarus.

The exhibition included drawings of the songs created by Nika, the series “Panda and Ozzy” which depicts different moments from the life of Nika and her husband, and the print-outs of the digital art of Ihar Varashkevich.

For Ihar Varashkevich, showing his own art work was a new and exciting experience. Up until recently, even his most loyal fans did not know that Ihar painted. His “secret” had been revealed during the scandal which came after some rock-musicians had met with the head of the ideology department within the President’s administration. That was around the time when the front man of Krama created a Livejournal-account under the name of d-yuzik, and started posting the pictures which he made in his spare time with a digital drawing tablet. Soon it became obvious that the Livejournal-public liked the style and plot of the drawings, and people started to leave comments with inquiries when the painter- musician will make a formal exhibition.

The first picture which was posted by d-yuzik was directly connected to the mentioned above scandal:

Nika Sandros is a friend and neighbor of Ihar Varashkevich. She is a known blogger who inspired her famous friend to start his own blog to be closer to the public. Nika started to draw songs since she was a child, inspired by her uncle who was a famous Greek singer. When she was a young girl she would be the only one whom he would let into his make-up room during the concerts. She would sit on his laps and paint her feelings inspired by the performance of her uncle. Afterwards, when she lived in Chile, she kept in touch with her uncle by sending him pictures of Chilean songs every month.

When Nika became an adult she continued to draw songs. Nika explains that drawings express feelings inspired by the songs so much better than words. Last autumn she was invited by the band “Indiga” to draw the songs of the band on stage while the group was performing.

Nika Sandros was pleasantly surprised that the exhibition attracted the attention of so many people in Miensk. A plausible explanation for this is the promotion she received on the Internet among the bloggers who know Nika quite well.

The exhibition, however, did receive a certain amount of criticism from the side of modern-art professionals. For instance, Adam Hlobus, one of the most famous modern artists in Belarus emphasized that only the digital drawings of Ihar Varashkevich can be recognized as real art, whereas the pictures of Nika do not represent professional art. For most of this criticism, Nika replied that she does not want to be a “professional” artist, that she is an absolute “primitivist”, and that maybe that is exactly what the modern public wants today.

The organizers were proposed to hold the same exhibition in other Belarusian cities and neighboring countries.