When a brand writes “Not an ordinary sale” and puts everything on clearance while stocks last, the instinct is to fear the worst, closure, surrender, the end of the road. With Codalunga, the opposite is true, the sale launched this week on the e-shop is only the latest chapter in a longer story, the announcement explicitly mentions a “different” future production, while the real news is happening elsewhere, at number 20 via Martiri della Libertà, in Vittorio Veneto, where Codalunga’s historic headquarters is being restored into a new permanent exhibition space.

To understand why this detail is culture news rather than mere admin, you need to know who’s behind it. Codalunga was born in 2005 as a section of the studio of Nico Vascellari, a visual artist born in Vittorio Veneto in 1976, today one of the most internationally recognized Italian names, called by Marina Abramović “the number one.” Back from the United States, Vascellari decided to open part of his studio to the public in a town of 27,000 people that was anything but used to contemporary art discourse. From there, over twenty years, more than 200 exhibitions, concerts and projects have passed through, Jimmie Durham, Charlemagne Palestine, Enzo Cucchi, Ghedalia Tazartes, the first artist showcase by Banks Violette in 2016. Codalunga became the reference point for an experimental scene rooted in the Veneto punk of the ’80s and ’90s, one that, thanks to Vascellari, went international.

The leap into becoming a “brand,” with t-shirts, objects, the temporary stores opened in 2022 at Roma Termini station and Milano Centrale, is the declared continuation of the project. Asked how independence squares with opening a shop in a location as “shamelessly commercial” as a train station, Vascellari answered without hesitation, if artists call their work “pieces,” he doesn’t see why opening a shop shouldn’t be one too. It’s a consistent stance for a practice that has always blended music (he’s the founder of Ninos du Brasil), performance, sculpture and now retail, treating every format as an extension of the same artistic gesture.

This season’s news fits into a bigger picture, one Vascellari speaks about openly, not a return to Vittorio Veneto, since he says he never really left, the historic headquarters was simply closed for a while, but an investment in the revival of Serravalle’s old town, the oldest part of the city, now marked by empty shopfronts and quiet streets. The restoration of what local outlets are calling “Palazzo Vascellari” will also house the artist’s personal archive, while a few weeks ago a temporary store two doors down from the historic headquarters had already started testing the waters, on the explicit condition, requested by Vascellari himself, that the street be closed to traffic for every event. Anyone buying a discounted piece on codalunga.org right now isn’t just catching an end-of-season sale. They’re unknowingly closing a twenty-year cycle that’s about to reopen in a new form, with more walls and more history.