“When artists began to examine the possibilities of mass dissemination and communication of their works, they looked to the ‘book as a work of the artist’ as a means to effectuate and distribute their ideas. Attracted by the simplicity, functionality, immediacy and democracy of printed material, these artists conceived works for the form and characteristics of the book.
The printed publication was a logical place for visual poetry, but it also suited conceptual artists, for whom the sequence of pages was essential for textual and photographic works, which often came into being as a series. Mladen Stilinović’s first books were published in the 1970’s….
Artist’s books in the 1970s in Croatia [then one of the republics in Yugoslavia] were generated in the context of changes in art that led to a shift of focus, away from the physical aspect of the artwork to the semantic dimension. Many artists of what was called the New Art Practice then issued several books … but only in the work of Goran Trbuljak, Mladen Stilinović and Vlado Martek did the book take on the dimensions of a more extensive activity, and even today these artists make them from time to time”; an illustrated retrospective of the artists’ books of Mladen Stilinović, edited by a Branca Stipančić, with essays by Branca Stipančić, Miško Šuvaković and an interview with M.S. by Sabina Sabolović, text in English.
Soft cover, 23,5 x 16,5 cm, 152 pages, Zagreb 2013
ISBN: 978-053-56526-3-2
