Mladen Stilinovic. Sing!
Accompanying the first big-scale retrospective exhibition of the artist - who is also part of the Kontakt Art Collection - taking place in Ludwig Museum–Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest in 2011, this book features over 100 installations, environments, artist’ books, collages, slogans, photo works, and previously unpublished early videos and experimental films and includes essays by such distinguished scholars as Branka Stipančić, Ellen Blumenstein, Ana Javenski, Georg Schöllhammer, et. al. which examine the extensive and consistent oeuvre of Mladen Stilinović and his importance on the international art scene.
The catalogue SING!, edited by Branka Stipančić, gives a comprehensive overview of Mladen Stilinović’s œuvre. In the first part of the catalogue five Essays analyze the work of the artist from different perspectives. The essay Auction of Red – A Look at the 70s by Branka Stipančić presents the early work of the artist and the activities of the Group of Six Artists. Ana Janevski examines the early films of Stilinović, in the context of the flourishing experimental film-scene of the former Yugoslavia. Igor Zabel’s text was originally published in the catalogue: Artist at Work 1973–1983, published by the Galerija ŠKUC, Ljubljana in 2005. By republishing this essay, the editor and the publisher wished to pay homage to the memory of Igor Zabel. Ellen Blumenstein refers to one of the most known pieces of Stilinović, Artist at Work (1978) when analyzing the famous manifesto of the artist, Praise of Laziness. The role of the work in the artist’s world as well as in the society gives the framework of her thought-awakening essay. Katalin Székely’s essay gives an overview of parallel phenomena in the former Yugoslavian and Hungarian neo-avant-garde art, through the work Taken out from the Crowd (1976).
Texts by and interview with the artist (by Darko Šimičić) are inserted into the second part of the publication, the part where most of the Works of Stilinović are reproduced. The third part of the catalogue, Documentation, edited byBranka Stipančić, consists of the List of the works exhibited in the Ludwig Museum, the list of the artist’s books, the lists of the actions and interventions as well as of the films of the artist. The group and solo exhibitions as well as a selected bibliography and a list of the works in collections are also included.