Based on an idea by curator and artistic director Massimiliano Bastardo and developed and produced by the cultural association 480 Site Specific, EDICOLA480 is the first space in Naples entirely dedicated to exhibiting a single work at a time. Each exhibition lasts 30–40 days and is based on a clear principle: subtraction as a form of enhancement. The work is not accompanied by redundant apparatus, it is not explained, it is not part of a whole: it is left alone, exposed, placed in a space that concentrates its energy and amplifies its presence. This minimal and radical format stems from the need to create a condition of intensified vision in a cultural ecosystem increasingly overloaded with images, presences and information.

EDICOLA480 proposes a deceleration of the gaze, a suspended moment in which enjoyment is transformed into an expanded and layered experience. The choice of a single work does not limit but, on the contrary, opens up: it enables a more direct, intimate and conscious contact with the research of the emerging and mid-career artists invited to participate. Located in the Chiaia district, the nerve centre of contemporary art in Naples, the space collects and reworks historical experiences such as “Pièce Unique”, conceived by Lucio Amelio in Paris, which already in the late 1980s focused on the single work as a radical act of exhibition.

In this ideal continuity, EDICOLA480 presents itself as an experimental and independent device, located in Via San Pasquale, where there was once a newsstand that was an emotional symbol for many Neapolitans. The paradigm shift will not change its soul: art, like newspapers, tells stories and recounts changes. The project is the result of a collaboration between artistic direction and associative planning, which share the same mission: to promote and enhance contemporary art through a unique, minimal and necessary format.