Vlasta Žanić’s new exhibition “Mind the GAP!” at the Kula Gallery in Split is in many ways specific. The artist, in fact, decided to exhibit the work “Cycle”, which she has shown for the first and only time in 1993 at the group exhibition New Croatian Art held at the Art Pavilion in Zagreb. After the exhibition, the work has been stored for almost three decades in the basement of a house, which is soon to be demolished so it became necessary to dislocate it, thus creating an opportunity, and an eagerness, to put it back “in circulation”. The original installation consisted of seven large identical iron cubes, arranged in sequence, with an opening in the front that reveals two belts, built on the inside, with arrows printed on them, which, in turn, rotate towards each other with the help of electric motors. Back then, the entire work showed the artist’s fascination with heavy industrial materials, motion mechanisms and the visualisation of kinetic energy. Seven phases of the cyclical movement of black arrows were thus shown, moving towards each other, colliding, running into and cancelling each other, always re-starting and ending their trajectory. The semantic thread that we could erstwhile read from these “mechanical screens” led towards a vivid representation of the cyclical nature of rhythm, which Vlasta, in accordance with the irrational ideals of her youth back then, considered to be a kind of reflection of ideal balance, universal whole and cosmic order. Taking the work out again after nearly thirty years it lay dormant is intriguing. Many things have changed: the time and context are different, the way of thinking also, and the appearance of the installation itself is visibly altered. It begs the question, is this one or multiple works? Questions about temporalities contained in an artwork or the multiplicity of their existence always pique the curiosity of art history and related sciences. However, the procedure here is not purely expositional or reconstructive, neither in the physical nor in the semantic field. The artist approaches it in a completely new way, searching for, that is, resetting and reprogramming the elements of the work that once existed. It is a process that is personal in nature, which the artist titles “Mind the GAP!”. Gap is an intermediate time of sorts, a temporal rift, but the term also acquired social connotations during the last two pandemic years because of an imperative of interpersonal distance (not only on the physical plane, and not just two metres apart!). Furthermore, GAP written in capitals actually becomes an acronym for the “generalised anxiety disorder” (Cro. “generalizirani anksiozni poremećaj”) which characterises the state of excessive anxiety and worry about a number of different events that is manifested daily or at intervals for at least half a year. It is not our intention here to go into psychiatric anamnesis, but to highlight, on the platform of recent events around the world, such as the pandemic, the earthquake or the bloody war in Ukraine, a particular terrain of insecurity in our daily lives, the sudden appearance of unexpected turns and a growing inner turmoil. In relation to this general context, Vlasta will make an interesting reference and say: “At this particular moment in time, I see the recollection of the naïve and healing energy of this work as a kind of therapeutic act, the need to ascertain that some cogs are still turning, that some arrows on endless belts attached to old mechanisms are still travelling.” In short, with her new exhibition, Vlasta Žanić not only delves into the field of examining the cause and essence of a work of art, but also the process of analysing personal experience, and in so doing examines the heterotopic encounter and divergence of past events and the state of one’s own present. Dalibor Prančević

Vlasta Žanić obtained a degree in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1991. During the first ten years of her artistic practice, she explores materials and spaces by visualising the relationships and energies between them. She sometimes incorporates drawing, glass, water or moving rubber belts into the geometric minimalistic forms of rough-cast, heavy iron. Over time, mechanically or metaphorically driven surfaces and spaces increasingly give way to video projections, spatial video installations and site-specific works. Since 2001, the focus of her work has been performance, happening, video and experimental film. The themes she deals with range from self-referential and feminist in orientation, to the theoretical and conceptual questions about the notions of life and art, the meaning and position of artists, the audience and exhibits. Movement, rotation and balance have continuously been a part of her artistic preoccupation, and sculpture, through many years of performance experience, is once again becoming an increasingly represented medium of expression. For many years she has been a part of the local and international art scene. Her works are kept in public and private collections of contemporary art. To date, she has had more than 30 solo exhibitions and has participated in many group exhibitions, both in Croatia and abroad. Selected awards: 8th Triennial of Croatian Sculpture Award in 2003, Annual Award of the Croatian Association of Visual Artists in 2005, Octavijan Experimental Film Award at the 14th Croatian Film Days, Vjesnik Annual Award in 2006, Award for the Croatian section at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2015, Grand Prix at the 51st Zagreb Salon of Visual Arts in 2016. From 2010 to 2018, she worked as an assistant professor in the sculpture department of the Arts Academy in Split, and in 2018 she became an associate professor in the sculpture department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb where she teaches in the graduate course of sculpture, Department of Art Education. Since 2005, she is a member of the association Atelieri Žitnjak.