Artists Protest Cuts, Rename Ministry of Culture 'Ministry of Bodybuilding'

Symbolic Renaming as a Cry of Despair

On Friday, March 13, 2026, an unusual performance took place in front of the Ministry of Culture building on Prague's Maltese Square. Three artists symbolically renamed the ministry the 'Ministry of Bodybuilding' — an ironic pun carrying the message that the Czech government is strengthening its muscles where it needs to (defense, armaments), while letting culture wither. The Art Survives initiative announced that it intends to hold similar actions every working day until the government reconsiders its approach to funding culture.

This provocative performance is not an isolated outburst. It comes after a series of protests that have hit the Czech cultural scene with unprecedented intensity. On March 11, hundreds of students from art schools — from DAMU, FAMU, AVU, and others — gathered in Malostranské Square under the slogan 'We Stand for Culture!'. Banners displayed calls such as 'Without living culture, there is only dull obedience' or 'We know how to starve, you don't know how to govern'.

How Much Money is Culture Missing?

The numbers speak clearly. The draft state budget for 2026 allocates 17.6 billion crowns to the Ministry of Culture, which is approximately 1.17 billion less than proposed by previous governments. Compared to the actual expenditures of 2025 — when the ministry also drew from the National Recovery Plan — this represents a decrease of almost 3.9 billion crowns. Culture's share of the state budget has thus fallen to just 0.63 percent, which is historically one of the lowest values in the last decade.

Live artistic forms are the most painfully affected. The cultural activities program, from which independent ensembles, theaters, and festivals across the country draw, saw cuts of over 300 million crowns — a drop of almost 30 percent. Orchestras and choirs lost 100 million crowns from their program, representing a quarter reduction. The literary magazine Host faces a forty percent subsidy cut from the Ministry of Culture, which could lead to a reduction in the number of issues or layoffs.

Defense Grows, Culture Withers

The context that the artistic community cannot overlook is clear: while culture is saving, defense spending in 2026 will reach 206.5 billion crowns, i.e., 2.35 percent of GDP. The Czech government has adopted a plan to increase the military budget to 3 percent of GDP by 2030. NATO commitments are being met with ease — at the expense of other areas of public interest, protesters claim.

Minister of Culture Oto Klempíř (Motorists for Themselves) defends himself by saying that 'the budget is the maximum possible after complex negotiations' and dismisses some information about the amount of cuts as disinformation. However, artists point out that Klempíř refused their invitation to a public debate in the theater. Actors Jitka Čvančarová and Hynek Čermák issued a statement that the invitation still stands.

Warning from Bratislava

Analyst Apolena Rychlíková warns of a Slovak scenario: in Bratislava, Minister of Culture Martina Šimkovičová has been systematically dismantling independent cultural institutions since 2023. According to her, the Czech cultural community, which has survived for years in chronic underfunding, has not built sufficient defense mechanisms. The question, therefore, is: will the Art Survives initiative and the entire resistance movement be able to force the government to change course, or will the performances in front of the 'Ministry of Bodybuilding' remain just a voice crying in the wilderness?