Mladen Stilinović, An Artist Who Cannot Speak English is No Artist, 1992
Acrylic on artificial silk, 140 × 246 cm
Born 1947 in Belgrad (RS)
Died 2016 in Pula (HRV)
As a post conceptual artist Mladen Stilinović is skeptical about the potential of art contributing to social change and investigates its relationship to power. The focus of his attention is on the “afterlife” of utopias. When is a utopia of liberation turned into a gesture of authority? Stilinović integrated the ambivalence inherent to geometric abstraction (and the avant-garde in general) in his works with his use of colour and form. In his early collages Stilinović reveals complex and sometimes enigmatic “language games” that had not yet revealed their political and ideological potential, and points to his future works.
Mladen Stilinović, Eksploatacija Mrtvih / Exploitation of the Dead, 1990
Acrylic on wooden board, 28 × 35 × 2 cm
Mladen Stilinović, Za Kruh / For Bread, 1973
Tempera, transfer lettering, newspaper on paper, 21.3 × 29.8 cm