Painting the Stage. Limited Edition (with Ilya Kabakov)

The work comprises an exclusive print, numbered and signed by Ilya Kabakov, created specifically for this publication; a sculpture designed and signed by the ‘starchitect’ Mario Botta, crafted from fine woods (ash, oak and walnut) and produced by Riva 1920; a finely bound copy of Painting the Stage, discreetly housed within the structure, in a dialogue between editorial research and artistic creation. Throughout their collaborative practice, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov have created immersive environments in which fiction, memory and collective psychology intertwine; spaces in which the viewer is not merely an observer, but a participant in a fragile and often metaphysical narrative. The same sensibility emerges in The Flies: the stage becomes a space charged with atmosphere, ambiguity and layered meanings. As in the Kabakovs’ installations, the space itself holds memory; it breathes with invisible presences and untold stories. Their approach to the work transforms the set design into a psychological architecture, where objects and images are never merely decorative, but symbolic — vessels of existential tension. The Kabakovs’ contribution places The Flies within a broader tradition of contemporary art that regards opera as a place of total immersion: a phantasmagorical realm in which sound, image and narrative dissolve into a shared, contemplative experience.