Jasminka Babić
Untitled (Vulcanizer Popović)

The process of researching and understanding the spatial and historical context of the venue in which he exhibits his work often underpins Viktor Popović’s artistic practice. Whether his work takes the form of graphic renderings of archival photographs or complex site-specific installations, Popović approaches it with meticulous care, demonstrating a profound grasp of the layered conceptual and formal structures that define the environment in which he intervenes. The same approach informs his most recent project, Untitled (Vulcanizer Popović).

Studio 21 Gallery occupies a particular and somewhat amorphous urban context on the outskirts of Split, an area characterised primarily by family houses with ground floors given over to small-scale commercial and service activities. Despite having operated at this address since 2014, the gallery is frequently located, even by its regular visitors, by reference to the well-known tyre repair shop next door. Conversely, it is unclear to what extent the workshop’s clientele register that exhibitions of contemporary art and an active educational programme take place directly opposite. Attentive to this specific social interplay, Popović enacts a calculated inversion (or diversion), effectively recasting the gallery space as a tyre repair workshop.

It is noteworthy that Viktor Popović possesses a marked ability, in interventions of this nature, to isolate the key element that defines the character of a space and, through a single decisive manoeuvre, recast it as a new spatial reality. One may recall his 2013 intervention at the 38th Split Salon, when, during his presentation at the Split City Museum, he effectively “sealed off” the exhibition space by erecting a wall along the line of the original wall of the ancient Cardo. Similarly, in the 2021 installation Untitled (Archive ST3: Content), he “recalibrated” the interior of Split’s Kula Gallery by rotating a construction scaffold by 36 degrees, thereby aligning it with the precise orientation of the ancient centuriation that once determined the spatial organisation of the entire Split peninsula. At Studio 21, the transformation begins outside the gallery. Drawing attention to the gallery’s relative invisibility among its surroundings, Popović places a large red neon sign reading VULCANIZER above the entrance. Positioned along one of the city’s busiest roads, the sign is designed to compete with the advertising of nearby cafés, currency exchange offices, and, of course, the neighbouring tyre repair workshop. With this gesture, the artist not only captures the attention of the local community but also “plants” a (deliberately misleading) suggestion of a new commercial presence for the many drivers who pass by each day. Perhaps some of them might even stop.

This situation reminded me of an anecdote related to the 2001 exhibition Opening Soon / Powerless Structures by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, held at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York. For the show, the artists covered the gallery’s window with a sign reading “Opening Soon – Prada,” commenting on the contemporary situation in Soho, where rising rents driven by gentrification were forcing small galleries to vacate their premises in favour of luxury retail stores. While many of the gallery’s visitors expressed disappointment at its closure, an even greater number were curious about when the new Prada store would open. Whether it is a renowned fashion brand or a tyre repairer, the chance of drawing the attention of numerous passers-by is undoubtedly higher than that of a typical art gallery advertisement. In any event, it will be fascinating to see how people respond to the “new vulcanizer” at Studio 21.

Remaining committed to a complete semantic inversion, Popović transforms the gallery interior itself, effectively creating a simulated tyre repair workshop. This is an example of what the Russian artist Ilya Kabakov describes as a “total installation,” emphasising the immersive quality of the work. Popović fills the space with car tyres (borrowed, naturally, from the gallery’s neighbour) and covers the walls with centrefolds from old issues of Playboy, combined to form the word VULCANIZER. Yet, as an artist who will never succumb to banality, the choice of centrefolds is deliberate rather than random. Collector’s editions of American Playboy from the 1960s to the 1980s, in their distinctive formats, have been carefully treated, with the centrefolds overlaid by thin sheets of paper soaked in motor oil. This “filter” both softens the imagery and creates a visually cohesive installation, while also adding an olfactory dimension, making the experience of the work fully immersive. It illustrates the inherent ambiguity of artistic installations, as the observer is positioned at the centre of such works (perception always requires physical presence in the space), yet also experiences a sense of decentring, as their reality becomes fragmented (even though the senses suggest otherwise, we are aware that we are not in a tyre repair workshop but in an exhibition space).1 Through the use of this strategy, executed with extraordinary control and careful attention to every detail, Popović makes the encounter with contemporary art both highly dynamic and compelling.

Finally, attention should be drawn to the installation’s most understated element – a small, rastered metal printing plate that Popović uncovered while researching materials for the exhibition. The plate bears reproduced photographs of a tyre repairer in the act of fixing a tyre, arranged in the shape of an inverted L, indicating that it was probably a matrix used for printing advertisements. Popović frames the plate and mounts it on a side wall of the gallery, offering a quiet homage both to the traditional craft of graphic preparation and to the work of the tyre repairers themselves.