Art collective Podroom was active from 1978-1980 in a private venue at Mesnička Street no. 12 in Zagreb, which was owned by two artists, Sanja Iveković and Dalibor Martinis.
Podroom was largely a meeting point for the pioneers of new artistic practice, which intended it to function not only as a gallery, but also as a place that would be dominated by the hitherto non-existing or long-forgotten forms of communication between artists, such as open debates, dialogue, publishing activity, and organized struggle for the improvement of the social and economic position of artists. In 1979, they proposed an “Agreement on the Conditions of Presenting Works of Art in Public,” in which they defined the recent problems related to art presentation, demanding a better position for the artist with regard to cultural institutions. With their agreement, they indicated the need of financially evaluating art independently of the market and pointed out the problem of aesthetic and artistic values as predetermined by the dominant institutions. Representatives of new artistic practice regularly produced artworks that negated the classical form of gallery exhibition, encouraging the creation of alternative spaces such as Podroom. Artists gathering in this venue included Boris Demur, Vladimir Dodig Trokut, Ivan Dorogi, Tomislav Gotovac, Sanja Iveković, Željko Jerman, Željko Kipke, Antun Maračić, Vlado Martek, Dalibor Martinis, Marijan Molnar, Goran Petercol, Rajko Radovanović, Mladen Stilinović, Sven Stilinović, Goran Trbuljak, Fedor Vučemilović, and Mirjana Zorić. They were independent artists or members of other art groups, and they used Podroom to promulgate their ideas, exhibit their artworks, and engage in debates about art and the position of artists.