Mladen Stilinović (10 April 1947 – 18 July 2016) was a Croatian conceptual artist and one of the leading figures of the so-called "New Art Practice" in

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

. He lived and worked in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

, Croatia.

Early life

Stilinović was born in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

, to father Marijan Stilinović, who early in his career was an editor of the newspaper '' Borba,'' ambassador to Argentina, and later head of

Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb The Museum of Contemporary Art (, often abbreviated to MSU) is a contemporary art art museum, museum located on Dubrovnik Avenue in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the biggest and most modern museum in the country. Vesna Meštrić is current director of MS ...

, and mother Nada Stilinović (née Popović).

Career

Stilinović's works are based on the idea of social and art critique. They are often witty, and come with a dose of irony and cynicism illustrated for example in his work, ''Money is Money, Art is Art''. He was one of the founding members of the informal neo-avantgarde, Group of Six Artists (''Grupa šestorice autora''), together with Vladimir Martek, Boris Demur, Željko Jerman, Sven Stilinović and Fedomir Vučemilović. The group was active in Zagreb from 1975 to 1979. In addition to his artistic creative output, he also managed the Extended Media Gallery (1981–1991), and was one of the co-founders of the Podroom Gallery (1978–1980). From 1969 to 1976 he was dedicated to experimental film. He collaborated with the group

IRWIN Irwin may refer to: Places ;United States * Irwin, California * Irwin, Idaho * Irwin, Illinois * Irwin, Iowa * Irwin, Nebraska * Irwin, Ohio * Irwin, Pennsylvania * Irwin, South Carolina * Irwin County, Georgia * Irwin Township, Venango Co ...

on the project ''Retroavangarde'' (1994). He is especially famous for his ''Exploitation of the Dead'' series (1984–1990) which has been exhibited at many shows, such as

documenta Documenta (often stylized documenta) is an Art exhibition, exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. Documenta was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgarte ...

in Kassel (2007).

Exhibitions

He has had many exhibitions in Croatia and abroad, among the more recent being: ''The Cynicism of the Poor'',

, (2001–2002), ''In Search of Balkania'', Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, (2002), ''Blood & Honey – Art in the Balkans'', Klosterneuburg, Vienna (2003), Sing!, Ludwig Múzeum (2011) and ''In the Gorges of the Balkans'' which was shown in the Kunsthalle Fridericianeum (Kassel, 2003), Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center (Istanbul, 2007) and Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, 2008). Igor Zabel, the renowned Slovenian curator, chose him as a guest artist at the 50th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

(2003) where Stilinović exhibited his work ''Dictionary – Pain'' (2000–2003) in which he used white colour to blank out many of the definitions of words in a dictionary replacing them with the word pain.. In 2017, he was selected as one of 120 artists in the world to participate in the 57th International Art Exhibition, VIVA ARTE VIVA, curated by Christine Macel. His works belong to many museum and gallery collections, including the

Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...

and

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

in Paris, museums of modern art collections in Stockholm, Vienna, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Banja Luka and in private collections such as the Filip Trade Collection, Zagreb.

Works and publications

:* Stilinović, Mladen, ''I Want to Go Home – Artist Book 1927–2006'' (Centre for Women's Studies, Zagreb, 2008). :* Beroš, Nada, Milovac, Tihomir, Stipančić, Branka & Zabel, Igor, ''Mladen Stilinović: Pain'' (exh. catalogue, Venice Biennale, MSU, Zagreb, 2003). :* Beroš, Nada, Milovac, Tihomir & Dragojević Danijel, ''Mladen Stilinović: Exploitation of the Dead'' (exh. catalogue; MSU, Zagreb, 2001).

References

External links

Mladen Stilinović
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stilinovic, Mladen 1947 births 2016 deaths Croatian contemporary artists Artists from Belgrade Artists from Zagreb