Mladen Stilinović

Born in Belgrade in 1947, Stilinović settled in Zagreb in the 1960s. He is associated with Yugoslavian Conceptual art, having played a prominent role in the movement beginning in the 1970s. He is the author of a complex, demanding body of work that merges text and symbols, subverting the verbal and visual clichés of everyday life that constituted the most potent expression of ideology in the Socialist era. In 1975, he became a member of the Group of Six Artists, which organized exhibition-actions in the street, and in the 1980s collaborated on the project Retro-Avant-Garde with the Slovenian collective IRWIN. In the years since the collapse of Federal Yugoslavia, his work has cast an ironic, paradoxical gaze on such dominant contemporary myths as money, time, work, language and power. Stilinović’s works have been shown in private homes as well as in institutional settings including Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb (2009); Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2009); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2009); the 11th International Istanbul Biennial (2009); the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2008); Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2006); MUMOK – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest (2005); and the Venice Biennale (2003 and 1995).