NMMU: Could you share some details about the works from the Nessuno torna indietro cycle, 2023–2024, that you are presenting at the Josip Račić Gallery?
Milo Sakač: The works on display, created in 2023–2024, are remakes of pieces from around ten years ago, employing similar techniques and materials, though with an evolution in both expression and style. During that time, I wasn’t financially able to purchase canvases and acrylic paints in the quantities I required. I improvised because ‘Navigare necesse est, vivere non est necesse.’ It’s hard for me to explain what I do and why, as I never have a clear concept, study, or sketches for what will unfold on the canvas. I reflected on that period and embarked on an adventure with some good house music. Given the gallery space, I chose a vertical format, which provides a certain monumentality, and it turned out to be the right decision. I have been living and working in Omiš for a year now (overseeing the construction of our house and studio in Gata, located in an olive grove). My studio there is improvised, and the conditions are not quite the same as in my Zagreb studio. In the mornings, I’m at the construction site, and in the afternoons, sometimes until late at night, I’m in the studio. Given the circumstances, I “managed somehow.” I used construction paper to cover the floors, stretched over several connected canvases, and worked with paints typically used in construction and household applications. The reduction of colour is my “comfort zone”; I always enjoy the process when I’m in the “workshop,” and the results began to take shape. With excitement and good house music, I was driven to continue. About 30 works were created, and Mr. Franceschi, with a little help from me, chose some to be presented at Račić. My initial idea was to present the works by mounting them on MDF and framing them, as the National Museum of Modern Art is the foremost institution for modern art, and I felt it would be fitting to present them in a more ‘formal’ way for the first time. However, Mr. Franceschi insisted on retaining the rawness of the works, as he aptly stated in the introduction: ‘It seems as though he is systematically engaging in a form of self-imposed penance or scrutiny, focusing expressive potential into a single, yet deeply charged achromatic event, where the gesture leaves a (black) mark on a (white) surface.’ ‘It is so sexy,’ he concluded. I had nothing to add.
NMMU: Your father was a builder, yet you chose not to follow in his footsteps and instead opted to study architecture?
Milo Sakač: My father brought me up to be a builder, and I worked my way through all the roles on the construction site – labourer, bricklayer, carpenter, steel fixer, plasterer, and tiler. This hands-on experience taught me how to design the buildings I have constructed throughout my career, with a deep understanding of all the tasks, processes, technologies, and materials involved. And there have been many—over two hundred completed projects. Before working on the hotel project in Lendava in the early 1990s, I often argued with my father about the quality and completion of projects. He had a deep disdain for architects, as they would typically give him projects that were only 80% finished, leaving the rest to be completed “on the go,” usually on-site, all while dealing with the architects’ arrogant, “godlike” attitude. After the hotel project, he shook my hand and said, “Now you’ve truly grown as an architect, now you have my respect,” because I had prepared EVERYTHING for him at the construction site.
NMMU: You are a versatile artist, having created stage designs and posters, as well as engaging in photography and modern dance. What inspired your passion for dance?
Milo Sakač: Music has always been, and still is, my unique ‘drive.’ I now paint to loud house music, which has a beautiful rhythm, much like jazz and classical music. Music serves as the ‘drive’ that encourages the body to move.
NMMU: What do you remember most from your student days?
Milo Sakač: The vibrant energy, the heyday of Zagreb’s club scene, especially jazz, working as a music editor at Radio 101, dancing, designing sets, and everything I discovered as an inquisitive provincial in the Big City. My days always felt too short; I followed a sleep schedule of three to four hours at night and half an hour during the day. Without false modesty, I navigated my architecture studies with ease and completed them on schedule.
NMMU: Which architect had the most influence on you during your studies?
Milo Sakač: I was deeply drawn to classical architecture and Art Nouveau, particularly Andrea Palladio, Otto Wagner, and our own Viktor Kovačić.
NMMU: Do you remember when you earned your first money and what you spent it on?
Milo Sakač: I earned my first money at the age of five, helping my father’s worker, Joši, with the cement mixer on a construction site. I don’t recall what I spent the five dinars on, but I treated them like a precious treasure.
NMMU: What has been the most challenging task in your professional career, and which project are you most proud of?
Milo Sakač: The most challenging task was breaking into the Viennese art scene and holding my first solo exhibition in 2017. The most demanding task, however, was choosing and preparing works for the exhibition at the Račić Gallery, as it marked the ultimate recognition in ‘my own city.’ This is something I am incredibly proud of, and I am very grateful to Mr. Franceschi for that.
NMMU: When you’re painting, do you think like an architect?
Milo Sakač: Actually, when I paint, I don’t think at all. I’m guided by a deep instinct that, I suppose, encapsulates all the experiences I’ve had over the past 60 years.
NMMU: Who are the buyers of your work?
Milo Sakač: The buyers of my work come from various professions.
NMMU: Which city are you most professionally connected to?
Milo Sakač: I have strong professional ties to three cities: Vienna, where I lived for two years and had a studio – a period that was crucial for my development as a painter – the city, with its deep architectural heritage, holds painting in high regard, and architects are greatly valued there. Vienna is also one of the world’s leading art capitals, including in the field of painting. In Vienna, it’s your work that counts, not your title; ‘your work represents you,’ which, in my experience, was almost an ‘impossible mission’ here until the exhibition at the Račić Gallery.
I lived and worked in the 2nd district, which alongside the 20th, is an epicentre of art – painters, sculptors, poets, musicians, dancers – all of whom live and create there.
Then there’s Zagreb, where my main studio is, and where I’ve spent most of my working life. It’s also where I have the largest following. Finally, there’s Omiš, where I had a studio and gallery for years at Fošal, in a garden, and where we are currently building a new studio in an olive grove in Gata, in the heart of Poljica.

Interviewed by: Lana Šetka
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Reproduction: Milo Sakač and the Director of the National Museum of Modern Art and curator of the exhibition, Branko Franceschi, at the opening of the artist’s exhibition at the Josip Račić Gallery. Photo by: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb