Saturday, 10 October 2026 at 1 pm
Film screening and exhibition
To mark the tenth anniversary of Mladen Stilinović's death, the Cultural and Information Centre will open an exhibition of his photographs, films and installations in the Upper Floor Gallery on Saturday, 10 October at 1 pm.
The event will begin in the cinema hall with a screening of the film Onward Cakes – Remembering Mladen Stilinović (1 h 57 min), filmed at the Zagreb Youth Theatre (ZKM) in 2016, the year the artist passed away.
In an effort to organise a laid-back collaborative event in keeping with the personality and spirit of Mladen Stilinović, the curatorial collective WHW (What, How and for Whom) and Branka Stipančić invited friends, artists, curators from Croatia and abroad, and people who knew him to pay tribute to him in their own way. The event, infused with playfulness, humour and creative anarchy, was dedicated to Stilinović's life and his artistic practice. Forty-five participants took part, giving speeches, performing and sending video messages. The event was filmed by Matija Kralj and Sonja Ratković, edited by Matija Kralj, and produced by the artist's widow, curator Branka Stipančić.
Mladen Stilinović (1947, Belgrade – 2016, Pula) was a neo-conceptual artist and one of the leading figures of the Yugoslav New Art Practice. From the late 1960s, he worked in the field of experimental film, and from the mid-1970s, he developed a distinctive artistic oeuvre that encompasses collage, photography, artists' books, painting, installations and actions. His works often critically question the language of art and politics, as well as the relationship between labour, money and power in society, employing irony, paradox and manipulation as his primary artistic strategies. Although he had been active on the local art scene since the early 1970s and exhibited abroad from time to time, Stilinović only gained well-deserved international recognition much later. His international exhibitions included the 10th Paris Biennale (1977), at De Appel in Amsterdam (1979) and at the Neue Galerie in Graz (1980). His professional career as an established artist began in the early 1990s, following the socio-political changes in Eastern Europe, when interest in artists from this region grew. Since then, his works have been regularly featured in major international exhibitions, including the Sydney Biennale (1992, 2006), the Venice Biennale (2003, 2017), documenta 12 in Kassel (2007), the Istanbul Biennial (2009), Les promesses du passé at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010), Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2013), Poetry & Performance: The Eastern European Perspective (a travelling exhibition, 2018–2021) and After the Wall at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020).
His works are featured in collections of numerous prestigious museums, including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), Kontakt Collection (Vienna) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb).
The exhibition in the Upper Floor Gallery can be viewed until 14 October 2026.