With his exhibition in retrospect Mirko Ilić is again returning to Maribor, where he spent his very early years. The internationally recognized author is presenting himself through all the fields of his work; comics, illustration, graphic design, typography and multimedia projects. Mirko Ilić’s work originates especially from drawings. For them and his work it is characteristic that they comment between the lines. The ideas that present themselves through illustration, already at first glance carry messages with a clear meaning, while they uncover new, more subtle stories from the background for the careful reader. His projects usually deviate from everyday, stereotype-like solutions for they have very direct, but in no way banal, messages and a complete identity. Ilić is one of the main protagonists for the enforcement and recognisability of the Yugoslav strip.

Mirko Ilić is an army brat (»dete vojnog lica«) born in Bijeljina BiH in 1956. He completed the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb. He publicly displayed his first work already in year 1973 and from then on he regularly published comics and illustrations in magazines like the Omladinski tjednik, Lasta, Tina, Pitanja. In the year 1976 he became the art and comics director with the student magazine Polet. In the same year he organized an informal group of comics writers Novi kvadrat (the New Square) that was strongly linked to the rock movement Novi val (New Wave) in Zagreb. In this connection Ilić designed record covers for the leading Yugoslav bands of the time: Bijelo dugme, U škripcu, Prljavo kazalište, BOA, Parlament and others. In 1977 Mirko Ilić also started to publish his work in recognized foreign comics magazines like Alter Alter, Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal. In 1980 the group Novi kvadrat broke up and Ilić totally dropped writing comics and focused on illustrations and graphic design. In 1982 he started working for the Italian magazine Panorama, as well as for the Croatian magazine Danas. After two years he quit and in 1986 he left Yugoslavia to move to the United States, where he quickly made a name for himself as an illustrator, focused especially on present political topics. He was working as an art director for the magazine Time International and Op-ed pages of the New York Times, while his works on the covers of these magazines often shocked the readers. Today he is the owner of Mirko Ilić corp. a studio for graphic design, 3D computer graphics and movie credits. Mirko Ilić is also the (co-)author of several books from the field of graphic design: Genius Moves: 100 Icons of Graphic Design, Handwritten - Expressive Lettering in Digital Age and Anatomy of Design (they were all made in co-operation with Steven Heller) and Design of Dissent (in co-operation with Milton Glaser). Despite the success in the United States he stayed in touch with Croatia all the time, although his work was rarely exhibited there. In 1998 and 1999 he designed the visual identity of the International Exhibition of Illustrations in Rijeka for which he was given the high award for design in the United States. This was also the opportunity for the exhibition in Mali Salon in Rijeka, where he, in addition to his illustrations, also presented the introductory credits of the feature Hollywood movie You’ve Got Mail. In Split and Zagreb in 2002 he presented his exhibition Sex and Lies from the series of 3D graphics with surreal and erotic content. Not until 2007 did he present the whole of his work in Zagreb in the exhibition Mirko Ilić – 30 years later that captured his initial period of his creating in the context of the evolution of punk in ex-Yugoslavia. The exhibition is especially important from the point of view of systematisation of cultural space in the ex-Yugoslavia; among other things it also slightly addresses the appearance of the legendary band Pankrti.

The present exhibition, which was created in cooperation with Magdalena – the 11th International Festival of Creative Communication, the Maribor Art Gallery and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Arts Rijeka, won this year’s prestigious Croatian award “Ivo Kalina” for best fine arts exhibition of contemporary art in 2008. More about Mirko Ilić on /www.mirkoilic.com/.

Curator: Dejan Kršić, Croatian theorist and graphic designer

Admission free. More info (in Slovene): UGM website