Tudor Ciurescu’s exhibition Pulcinella unfolds like an absurdist theatre play, where logic crumbles, and objects become protagonists in their own right. A meditation on balance, absence, and the tension between stability and collapse, the exhibition embraces the spirit of Eugène Ionesco’s theatre, where the mundane is distorted, and reality is a precarious illusion. Inspired by Ionesco’s exploration of the absurd, Pulcinella questions the structures we rely on, only to reveal their inherent fragility.
At the center of the exhibition is a precariously balanced chair, leaning at a sharp angle, accompanied by a pair of empty leather shoes. A scene frozen mid-action, yet eerily indifferent to time, as if a performer has just vanished into thin air or has yet to arrive. The setup feels like a stage in which movement is both imminent and impossible, a paradox Pulcinella himself would revel in. The masked trickster of Commedia dell’arte exists in contradiction—simultaneously foolish and wise, clumsy and cunning, absurd yet profound. Pulcinella does not obey the rules of physics or society, much like Ciurescu’s chair, which resists logic, balancing on the edge of collapse yet never falling.
Pulcinella thrives in absurdity, surviving through trickery and improvisation, where confusion is his natural state. His movements are exaggerated, his gestures oscillating between control and chaos. Ciurescu’s sculpture echoes this strange theatricality—an object behaving unnaturally, suspended between gravity and defiance. The empty shoes reinforce this sense of dislocation. Are they a remnant of a hurried departure, or do they belong to a character who was never truly there? The chair, like an actor trapped in an existential farce, leans, waits, and teeters, embodying the liminality of absurd theatre—where meaning dissolves into pure performance.
The work possesses an undeniable cinematic quality, as if the viewer has pressed pause on a film at a moment of critical suspense. The tension of an imminent event lingers in the air—has something just happened, or is something about to unfold? The stillness is deceptive, charged with an eerie dynamism, much like a film scene where an unseen force has momentarily suspended reality. The sense of an interrupted narrative invites speculation, reinforcing the absurdity of the moment.
The exhibition’s dramatic tension is heightened by the use of chiaroscuro, as a spotlight isolates the chair and shoes against a deep red velvet background, evoking both theatrical grandeur and a sense of impending doom. The stark contrast between light and shadow accentuates the sculpture’s precariousness, as if it exists in a fragile moment of revelation, caught between presence and erasure.
In Pulcinella, the ordinary becomes strange, the stable becomes unsteady, and the act of sitting—so fundamental, so unquestioned—becomes a site of absurd drama. By weaving together historical allegory, theatrical chaos, and the fragile materiality of his chosen media, Tudor Ciurescu invites us into a world where balance is an illusion, action is hesitation, and the only certainty is uncertainty itself.
Pulcinella is not just a character, nor just a title—it is the stage on which we all play, constantly shifting between presence and void, between comedy and collapse.