Zlatko Glamočak defies the flux of artistic fashion by sculpting timeless visions that bridge civilizations, epochs, and the soul’s quiet defiance. From the streets of Bar to the halls of the French Academy, his is a journey etched in stone and resistance.
The interlocutor of Diplomacy & Commerce Montenegro is an artist whose work and stance do not conform to trends, but rather courageously oppose them. Zlatko Glamočak-a sculptor, thinker, and cultural dissident in the truest sense-has for decades been creating sculptures that not only withstand time but actively shape it. Born in Bar, shaped in France, recognized and awarded at the highest echelons of the European cultural scene, Glamočak doesn’t just build sculptures; he builds bridges-between epochs, between civilizations, between man and his own shadow. In our magazine’s conversation, Glamočak reveals how his path from the Bar high school to the French academy was marked by unexpected twists-a true divine comedy-but also by steadfast dedication to art as an existential act.
Mr. Glamočak, you are considered one of the most important contemporary artists in Montenegro, and beyond. In 2015, the French Academy of Fine Arts (Academie des Beaux Arts) included you among the 25 most important artists (alongside Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Van Gogh, Bernard Buffet, Henri Matisse, Alfred Kubin, Vladimir Veličković, Dado Đurić, etc.). How do you perceive your own artistic path – from your youth in Bar to recognition in the highest cultural circles of France?
The Divine Comedy, as I often call my works and exhibitions – life is unpredictable. That was the first thought that came to mind when I received the invitation from the Academy to participate in that conference. Being invited to present my work under the dome of the Academy, in such company, in that place, brought me a smile of very pleasant surprise, and then recognition for my work: that through my activity in the French cultural environment I could stand out so much that my work is displayed at this prestigious institution.
I knew who its members were, and I even personally knew some of them: people who shaped the cultural scene of the second half of the 20th century – Roman Polanski, Georges Bazelitz, Woody Allen, Jean Clair (former director of the Picasso Museum), Giuseppe Penone, Mario Vargas Llosa, Vladimir Veličković, Zao Wau Ki (whose paintings reach prices of up to fifty million euros), my professor Cardo…
Life is truly a parabola, unpredictable. I, from the Bjeliši neighborhood in Bar, a former student of the Bar Gymnasium, found myself under that dome, perhaps sitting right on the chair where some of them once sat. And there, in the oldest academy founded by Cardinal Richelieu, while reflecting on fate, time, and the people who shape it, I recalled his ominous sentence: “In the text of every person, I will find a phrase that will serve me to legally cut off their head.” A sentence that defines the unfreedom of a man living in fear of the willfulness of his ruler often leads me to think that perhaps it was the inspiration for the famous Article 133 of the Criminal Code of former Yugoslavia – the “verbal offense” – a law because of which many ended up in prison, while I avoided it by fleeing to France as a student. And now – the Academy!
Yes, life is a Divine Comedy, full of twists and whims – and we often realize this only later. Recently, Željko Vučurević from Cetinje sent me a text from Pobjeda from 1992 entitled Figuration at the End of the Millennium. It mentioned the French painter Hervé Di Rosa, recently made a French academician – founder of the movements of graffitism and free figuration, along with Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Combas, with whom I exhibited at that and many other exhibitions. He was a favourite of the Šafraci Gallery, which also exhibited Pollock, Rauschenberg, Oldenburg… In the early ’90s, when we exhibited together, he wanted to socialize and exchange works. I showed no interest. A mistake? Maybe. Paths are different. In the end, everyone arrives at some destination.
In a splendid conference hall adorned with sculptures of notable figures from French history that observed me from above during a presentation about my work – including reproductions of my pieces – I thought: „Among these towering giants, I do not stand out of place“. My eyes sought Academician Brigitte Terziev, and I was not wrong to trust when she wrote: “From the second half of the twentieth century onward, French culture blossomed with the presence of extraordinary artists like Dado and Veličković. Zlatko Glamočak belongs to this creative lineage from Eastern Europe, bearing the gift of colossal expressionism. As both sculptor and scholar, I declare that Glamočak’s sculptures resonate with strength and a singular voice in the world of sculpture.”
The late Mladen Lompar once confided that he had known her brother – a legend whose name shines bright in French theatre. With several French academicians, I’ve forged close bonds – they visited me, wrote of me. Among them, a Sorbonne Professor Emeritus from the famed Sutu family, who penned the foreword to my wife’s book on energy geopolitics; Veličković; Claude Abeille, former president of the Academy; Brigitte Terziev, sculptor; and my mentor, Professor Cardot. Veličković and Abeille wrote of my work, and offered glowing letters to the Montenegrin Academy – yet I was not counted among its “greatest figurative artists,” despite such elevated voices affirming that very merit. But the French Academy – it leaves space for an alternative history. And so, I found myself among these giants.
Among the many conferences I recall, one stands apart: “Great Sculptors Today,” held in the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon – an institution founded just seven years after the Louvre. There, I was honored to stand beside Academician Ousmane Sow, known to many as the “Black Michelangelo.” His anatomical warriors had once embodied France on the grand stages of the Venice Biennale in 1995 and Documents in Kassel in 1993. In 1999, his sculptures were exhibited on the bridge across from the Academy – attracting three million visitors to witness them.
They were later shown at the Whitney Museum in New York. Interestingly, Sow was a physiotherapist by profession. After retiring, he left France and returned to Africa. He was discovered as an artist by Leni Riefenstahl, the photographer known for her work for Hitler – a fact that is often deliberately overlooked today. Yet another testament to the Divine Comedy of life.
As the curator of the Corps à corps exhibition, recognized as one of the most significant cultural events in France, you succeeded in initiating a dialogue about the body and the figure in contemporary art. What memories do you associate with that event?
Nevertheless, the Body to Body exhibition remains, even today, after so many years, a shining moment that is still spoken of. Art Press magazine, one of the most prestigious in the field, compared it to the most monumental figurative exhibitions of the late 20th century – Identity and Otherness in Venice and Sensation in London. Galleries and museums submitted works by their most renowned artists. For this exhibition, curator Alexie Faure entrusted me with four pieces by Antonio Saura (a painter nearly equal to Picasso), who later became director of the Paris Academy and the Pompidou Center.
An anecdote: the sculpture of Germaine Richier, which we discovered by chance while preparing the exhibition, had been sitting for years in the hallway of a primary school in the suburbs of Paris. The cleaning staff would hang wet rags on it to dry! Naturally, it was included in the Body to Body exhibition, and later, the very same sculpture became part of a retrospective of this sculptor at the Pompidou Center.
With your sculpture, you gave lasting form to the spirit and legacy of Uroš Tošković – the famed artistic eccentric from Bar, whose soul was as fierce as his brush. How did you approach this task, and did this piece carry a special meaning for you?
Tošković is a tale in himself – a living incarnation of defiance and individuality. A provocateur who enters a TV studio with utmost seriousness- and raises a middle finger. A draftsman who brings to life the traces of warriors and demonic forces. His world was no riddle to me – you don’t need to know him face to face, for this is about spiritual resonance, of blood type. I understood him – by instinct, entirely.
One image has stayed with me: naked, stripped bare, with a cloth around his waist – like a messiah. The veins stood out on his flayed body like those of Saint Bartholomew; his own skin a burden. On his feet, boots two sizes too big, dragging one behind him – like a child. I came across that very photograph, six months into the work. I placed his monument on a wooden raft – the raft of a survivor – positioned diagonally, so that it faces the imprint of his own middle finger. That middle finger stands in contrast to Caesar’s thumb. Caesar came from humble origins, just like Tošković. Yet his Thumb sculpture is the most famous in art history – cast in gold, the embodiment of economic opulence. Tošković, on the other hand, gazes at his own middle finger a universal gesture of rebellion. Claude Abeille, the aforementioned sculptor and former president of the French Academy, came to my studio to see the monument in progress. He offered a few suggestions. Before the unveiling, he sent me a letter ending with the words: “For me, it was a pleasure to analyze with you the challenges and joys of the monument’s scenography – which you execute so well that I was even astonished by its quality and the boldness of its expression.” I was moved by that respectful and collegial gesture. In this monument, I insisted on an esoteric dimension. In my view, Dimitrije Popović’s Fountain in Cetinje and Pavle Pejović’s Obelisk also belong to this rare artistic category in Montenegro.
In the era of digital art and conceptual practices, where do you see the place of classical sculpture, especially figurative sculpture?
No, the scene is mournful. Historian Eric Hobsbawm, in his book The End of Culture, declared that contemporary art has lost its soul and turned into mere spectacle. Marina Abramović? Her own brother calls her a “variety artist” of today’s circus. Everyone blends into one another – and no one knows who anyone is anymore.
Voltaire once said, “If you are great, a greatness just as vast stands behind you.” Behind Dado stood Daniel Cordier, the collector, who welcomed France’s president Macron at his deathbed. Voltaire is gone; Cordier has left us too. As Karl Kraus proclaimed: “When culture’s sun dips low on the horizon, dwarfs stretch their shadows long.” Today, those “dwarf shadows” are longer than ever before. The diagnosis of the illness of contemporary art was given by Jean Clair in his book The Winter of Culture.
Moreover, following the last Venice Biennale, Le Monde published an article with the sharply precise headline: “It is not enough to cut off your ear to be Van Gogh!” The article offers a harsh critique of the culture of plagiarism and directly connects to Jean Baudrillard’s polemical essay titled Is All Modern Art Worthless? Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Artcurial – auction houses in Paris – do not exhibit or sell conceptual and digital works. On the contrary, when works by Duchamp or Marina are “found” in their collections, it is almost considered an incident.
In conclusion: Once, we might have missed the artist – yet the artist was never truly lost. Today, there is no chance to miss them at all, for they have simply vanished.
How do you assess the contemporary art scene in Montenegro? Is there room to gain more visibility and recognition of Montenegrin artists in the European and global context?
I am not sufficiently familiar with the art scene in Montenegro. These are young people with perspectives different from mine and my generation’s. However, I fear that many have already been absorbed into the “package deal” – from art to festivals. If that is the case, it is truly a pity. They have aged quickly, skipping their youth, and youth is rebellion – the very essence of art. This is true both for the artist and for art itself, as even the remarkable Marina affirms.
Yet I hold faith in the Divine Comedy, in apocatastasis. I believe humankind is condemned to endure. Perhaps, upon Tošković’s raft of salvation, a few more young rebels will latch on – and stay. And survive. I offer no counsel. I merely watch.