Milan Zulic – Art as a Space of Silence
Your artistic journey spans more than three decades. How do you see your beginnings today, from this distance?
My path began quietly, without great ambitions, in the Meander Gallery, back in 1992. At that time, I had no awareness of a “career,” only a strong inner impulse to create. That impulse was never directed toward a goal, but toward a process—toward listening. Today, I understand that the silence of those beginnings has remained a constant in my work. Everything that followed—exhibitions, cities, recognitions—are simply different forms of the same inner movement.
Your works are often described as meditative and free of narrative. How do you perceive your own art?
I no longer experience it as a personal expression, but as a space through which something passes. Creativity allows the infinite to speak through it—a quiet reflection of what is already there. Art, in my experience, does not need to explain or convey a message. It can open a space where presence itself becomes an experience. The beauty that appears then belongs neither to me nor to the viewer—it belongs to the silence from which it came.
Your practice includes drawing, sculpture, photography, video, and digital media. How do you choose the form?
Form never leads me—it reveals itself. Each medium is simply a different language of the same silence. Sometimes what wishes to appear seeks movement, sometimes stillness, sometimes space, sometimes time. Digital technology has allowed me to expand this dialogue, but the essence has remained the same: how to materialize the immaterial without losing its essence—its beauty and its silence.
The videos Infinity and Shabnura brought you significant international attention. How did these works come into being?
They did not arise solely from an idea, but from a state of consciousness. Their seed lies in the silence of Sufi verses. The video was not “made”—it happened. It is a visual prayer, a collage of waves, oceans, and slow, meditative moments. Word and sound do not lead; they breathe together with the image. The greatest challenge was to remain empty enough so that what appears could breathe freely—to touch the viewer not through meaning, but through pure beauty.
Your works have been shown worldwide—from New York and Moscow to Tehran, as well as Paris, London, Rome, Mexico City, Cairo, and São Paulo. How do you experience this global context?
Space and geography are secondary. Silence has no borders. When a work is born from that place, it communicates universally, without the need for translation. Experiences in New York, London, Tehran, or Naples have shown me that there is a shared inner space where people recognize one another—regardless of culture, language, or tradition.
Your work is often described as belonging to so-called “objective art.” What does that mean to you?
It is art that does not arise from personal drama, psychological projection, or the need for self-affirmation. It emerges from silence and from the artist’s openness to become a mediator. Such art does not impose—it allows. It does not seek attention, but presence. When the author steps aside, a space appears in which the viewer can encounter themselves and their forgotten essence.
During your career, you have participated in more than 400 group exhibitions and 38 solo exhibitions. Has your relationship to creation changed over time?
Forms, tools, and circumstances have changed, but my relationship to creation has not. Talent is a gift I do not know how I deserved, but I have always felt a responsibility to nurture it. All these years, I could not have spent them more honestly or sincerely than through this work. From that comes the work. From that comes the love that is visible.
How do you see your path ahead—what comes next?
I do not see myself as an artist of a single medium, nor of a single form. Every moment carries the possibility of creation. What matters is that the flow remains free—that what needs to appear can continue to pass through unobstructed. If my work allows someone, even for a moment, to pause, to enter silence, and to recognize their own depth, then everything has already fulfilled its purpose.