Kino Valli / Valli Cinema, Pula
30 July – 18 September 2026
Curators: Branka Stipančić, Dorina Vlakančić

On the tenth anniversary of Mladen Stilinović’s passing, Kino Valli will open an exhibition of his photographs, films, and installations in its foyer on Thursday, 30 July at 8:00 p.m., commemorating one of Croatia’s most significant contemporary artists.

Later that evening, at 9:00 p.m., the cinema will screen Onward Cakes – Remembering Mladen Stilinović (1 hr 57 min), a feature-length film recorded at the Zagreb Youth Theatre (ZKM) in 2016, the year of the artist’s death.

Wishing to create an informal, collaborative event that reflected Mladen Stilinović’s personality and spirit, the curatorial collective WHW (What, How & for Whom) and Branka Stipančić invited friends, artists, curators from Croatia and abroad, and people who had known him personally to remember him in their own way. Filled with playfulness, humour, and creative anarchy, the event celebrated both Stilinović’s life and his artistic practice. Forty-five participants contributed through speeches, performances, and 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 (Belgrade, 1947 – Pula, 2016) was a neo-conceptual artist and one of the leading figures of the New Art Practice in the former Yugoslavia. From the late 1960s he worked in experimental film, and from the mid-1970s developed a distinctive artistic practice encompassing collage, photography, artists’ books, painting, installations, and actions. His work persistently questioned the languages of art and politics, as well as the relationship between labour, money, and power in society, employing irony, paradox, and manipulation as fundamental artistic strategies.

Although active on the local art scene from the early 1970s and exhibiting internationally on occasion—including the 10th Paris Biennale (1977), De Appel, Amsterdam (1979), and Neue Galerie, Graz (1980)—Stilinović achieved the international recognition he deserved only much later. His career as an internationally established artist effectively began in the early 1990s, following the political changes in Eastern Europe, when interest in artists from the region grew significantly. Since then, his work has been presented at numerous 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 (travelling exhibition, 2018–2021), and After the Wall at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020).

His works are held in the collections of many prestigious museums, including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), the Kontakt Collection (Vienna), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb).

The exhibition Onward Cakes – Remembering Mladen Stilinović was conceived by Dorina Vlakančić and Branka Stipančić.

Opening: Thursday, 30 July 2026, 8:00 p.m.
Film screening: 9:00 p.m.
Exhibition on view through: 18 September 2026

Interview with Branka Stipančić (in Croatian) about the exhibition and film screening in Kino Valli on Radio Maestral, Pula, 2026

Photo: Valter Zanco / Kino Valli, Pula