In perfect harmony with the generative principle of the exhibition series Fivefold Tuning, Lorena Bucur’s work, entitled Resto poco, torno presto, [‘I won’t stay long, I’ll be back soon’], takes shape not only through an exploration of the local area, but also through a profound dialogue with the exhibition space itself and with the preceding works – | senza | soluzione di continuità by Liliana Moro and Guastafeste by Federica Balconi.
By working directly on existing elements on the verge between the realm of public space and that of the exhibition space – the two stone imposts on either side of the display window and the internal lintel above the sliding door – the artist creates a structural and visual frame, inviting the viewer’s gaze to linger on architectural features that would normally go unnoticed. The material language chosen by Bucur is concrete: a material that evokes the processes of transformation and stratification of the urban environment, while placed on its surface are a number of photographs taken in the Lodi area during an artist-in-residence programme. The subjects of the images include the river landscape, the banks of the Adda and the various plant species found there: an atmosphere typical of the agricultural province, as flat and monotonous as it is characteristic, with that slow flow of water which also served as a source of inspiration for the work conceived by Moro for Platea.
Once developed and selected, the images are partially cropped; or at the very least, Bucur isolates a portion or a detail which is then imprinted directly onto concrete, becoming the primary signifying matrix of a process that is as sculptural as it is unintentionally painterly. The result is a concrete landscape tending towards abstraction, where the image is blurred and prone to partial erosion. Here, forms and colours surface as residual traces, constituting visual signs that seem to emerge directly from the material memory of the place, from the experience of passing through it – an intimate space presented also as a liminal dimension, midway between the preservation of memory and its gradual fading over time and in the mind. The title plays precisely on this stance, one poised between memory and dissolution: an intervention that arrives as if out of the blue, catching the eye, lingering briefly, yet to be back soon, perhaps in other forms and layouts.
Hence, we might say the process of creating printed concrete works – here, as in other works by the artist that draw on this technique – opens up to an abstract landscape dimension, one marked by a transformation of matter as well as mnemonic erosion. Bucur ‘drowns’ this landscape in concrete, thereby expanding the photograph into sculptural three-dimensionality and the image into an object. But beyond this process, the installation at Platea splits in two and takes on an architectural dimension, exploiting the two external columns and then repeating inside, on the lintel, its presence duplicated by the reflections from the mirrored walls of Moro’s work.
Viewed head-on and from a distance, Resto poco, torno presto seems to frame a landscape within a landscape, like a faded postcard with the works of Liliana Moro and Federica Balconi at its centre, evoking a party that has come to an end in the square ahead or a fountain at night. And you are there, but you won’t stay long. You are part of the landscape; you see your reflection, and then you’ll be back.
Giovanna Manzotti
Following the launch in March of the programme Fivefold Tuning, curated by Giovanna Manzotti, featuring Liliana Moro’s work | senza | soluzione di continuità – an architectural and installation-based intervention that serves as the backbone to the entire exhibition series – the second young artist to take centre stage after Federica Balconi (Monza, 1999) is Lorena Bucur (Cremona, 1996). Devised as a single sequence shot, the programme’s extended timeframe (20 March 2026 – 15 January 2027) will feature works by two more emerging artists between September and November 2026: Diana Lola Posani (Milan, 1994) and Andrea Di Lorenzo (Varese, 1994). The title Fivefold Tuning evokes a process of harmonisation and closeness that presupposes mutual listening and shared tension. The opening voice – Moro’s – sets the tone within which the other artists’ practices find their place, in a continuous exercise of attuning between different languages and sensibilities.
Lorena Bucur was born in Cremona in 1996 and currently lives and works in Bologna. She trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Her artistic practice explores the fragile boundary between memory and oblivion, permanence and erosion. Through a material investigation of time and place, the artist translates photographic images into concrete objects and surfaces, destined to undergo transformation. Her works, often rooted in the form of everyday objects, evolve through processes that include wear and change, incorporating the passage of time into their physical structure. Her practice takes the form of designing and creating image-objects and sculptures made from fabric and concrete, which invite us to reflect on the latent history of the things around us and on the changing nature of memory. She has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad, including at Rondella delle Boccare, Verona; Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio, Bologna; Joystick, Venice; Piccola Galleria, Bologna; Anonima Kunsthalle, Varese; Raccolta Lercaro, Bologna; Spazio TORRSO, Pesaro; , Graz; Fuocherello, Volvera, Turin; P420, Bologna; and at the Botanical Gardens and Herbarium in Bologna. She has taken part in the residencies Made In Vol. 2, promoted by Artissima in collaboration with Ultravioletto and curated by Sonia Belfiore, and Nuovo Forno del Pane Outdoor Edition, curated by Lorenzo Balbi, Caterina Molteni and Sabrina Samorì.
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