Currently on view at the gallery until the 13th March, C’era una mosca (There once was a fly), Filippo Mazza’s (Milan, 1994) first solo exhibition, accompanied with texts by Ilaria Baia Curioni and sound design by Jacopo Gino.

C’era una mosca is a reflection on visibility, perception, and on invisibility. This sensation of an “absence of art,” contrasted with the buzzing of a fly, creates tension. You look around, searching for the source of the noise, but there is nothing which justifies that sound. And yet, there is something inevitable: the fly is there, invisible, but absolutely present through its sound. The buzzing becomes the focal point of everything, a kind of “sound artwork” that, despite its lightness, challenges traditional expectations of what an art exhibition should propose. The sound, the golden material, and the absence of context push the viewer to interact with the work, making the act of searching an integral part of the aesthetic experience.

The fly, whilst remaining a common insect, transforms itself into an object loaded with meaning: the gold, the buzzing, and its constant “disappearance” raise questions about how we conceive beauty and consequently perceive it. Its existence seems to depend on our listening, our ability to perceive it, and thus art becomes a matter of waiting, searching, and paying attention to the smallest signs. The very duration of the exhibition—a month—respects this exercise in attention, following the natural life cycle of a fly. In this interplay between visible and invisible, presence and absence, the exhibition is not just a visual experience but also a sonic, interactive, and perhaps even emotional one, where the value of the work lies not only in its aesthetic aspect but also in the personal interpretation of the visitor—in their attempt to decipher that elusive sound that hints at something grand, yet is, at the same time, infinitely small.

“I enter distracted, the space is empty.
There is a fly. I hear it everywhere.
Wait, maybe in this corner.
No, it is not there.
I hear it again, it comes from the other side.
Nothing. I don’t hear it anymore.
Ah, maybe up here? No.
It’s playing with my mind, so small, so useless.
So annoying.
Bzzzzzzzz.
It’s me and the flycatcher, I know it’s the only thing that
can get me out of this loop.
I feel like I’m going round in circles.
There’s a fly hidden somewhere.
To hell with all these white walls.
Bzzzzzz.
Wait a minute.Let me turn the corner. AH!

There you are. There’s a fly.”