Since the end of the 1960s, Mladen Stilinović worked in socialist Yugoslavia as a filmmaker, author and visual artist. He worked with signs and words that played a central role in the socialist, communist worldview. The use of language as an expression of ideological prejudices also played an important role. He worked with the colour red, as the symbolic colour of the communist world, and as an opponent he introduced the 'bourgeois' colour pink.
In May 1975, a group of six friends formed the 'Group of Six Authors'. Mladen Stilinović, Boris Demur, Fedor Vučemilović, Vlado Martek, Sven Stilinović and Željko Jerman worked individually, wanted to avoid the official exhibition venues and tried to get in direct contact with the public with actions in public space. They exhibited their works on lawns, on the beach and in public places.
Mladen Stilinović had his first solo exhibition at the Gallery Nova in Zagreb in 1976. In addition to a number of his artist books and various series, he also showed the series 'Ruka Kruha' for the first time. Two of these works are in the Art Collection Telekom. His artistic activities were an important part of the 'New Art Practice', which above all marked the emergence and development of a new artistic language in Zagreb and Croatia from the late 1960s until the 1980s. During this time he was invitated to take part in many international exhibitions.
Since the beginning of the 1990s on, works by Mladen Stilinović were presented internationally. He is one of the most important artistic figures who reflected in their work both socialist and late capitalist society with ironic and skeptical intelligence.
His 1978 work 'Artist at Work', which shows the artist sleeping in bed, is a humorous point against socialist work ideology and a plea for a period of reflection. The text 'In Praise of Laziness' from 1993 deals with a different kind of artistic productivity. He consciously opposes the overproduction of the western art market.