MLADEN STILINOVIĆ
Artist At Work

12. 5. - 18. 06. 2005
Opening on Thursday 12 May at 8pm

You are invited to attend the guided tour with Mladen Stilinović on Sathurday, June 18th at 7pm. After the guided tour there will be the promotion of the exhibition catalogue.

Artist at Work is an exhibition of Mladen Stilinović's works made in the period from1973 to 1983. It will present the initial phase of his artistic creativity, representing an important document of the time and the artist's reaction to the then social and political ambience. It will be divided in four segments, or rooms: the "Red-Rose" installation, the "Slogan Words" installation, an installation with photographs, and the "Open to Public Discussion" installation.

The connection between life experience and art in Mladen Stilinović's works is evident from the artist's answer to the question why he had used so many communist symbols: "Because we had lived in such a time. It was all around me, and therefore I also referred to it. My topics derive from the issues I face. I was not engaged in abstract art but, rather, in my own life through art." And to the question about the most popular rhetoric figures in socialism, he said: "I'm not sure; I don't remember any more, they had worn out."*

Mladen Stilinović's artistic creativity goes back to the late 1960s, when he first started to be engaged in experimental film, experimental photography and happening. In 1975 he founded, together with five other artists, an informal art group dubbed by the critics as the "Group of Six Artists". In their joint activities the group was largely dedicated to the preservation of identities and discernible characters of every single member, while as a group they developed a single mode of reflecting and taking positions about the issues and objects they considered to be art. The work of this group, which was the mover of new art practices, played an important role in the fine-art scene of the 1970s. Their works criticised the society and questioned the social system and principles of life. The group preferred exhibitions outside gallery premises, thus expressing its criticism of the gallery system.

The tendency to present "old" acquaintances of our space — a solo exhibition by the Irwin group last year, first after twenty years; Marko Jakše's exhibition after thirteen years — is not accidental. In general, artists who used to exhibit in the Škuc Gallery at the very beginnings of its functioning later became irreplaceable agents of contemporary art production at both local and international scenes. Their artistic expression changed throughout the years in relation to the political and social surroundings in which they lived. Their art was inscribed into public minds and historic books. This exhibition of Mladen Stilinović's works brings not (only) a historical, or nostalgic, view of the past and the artist's response to the then surroundings; rather, it (un)willingly mirrors itself in the present time and environment, which seem to be so much different.

* From an interview with Mladen Stilinović by Branka Stipančić, which will be published in the Artist at Work catalogue.