1940-09-02 Making Small Circles, Hitlerkugeln, … from left to right: Untitled (Making Small Circles), 2002 ballpoint pen on paper, 42 x 59.2 cm Collection agnès b., Paris Untitled (How a Single Horizon Line…), 1999 pencil on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm Untitled (Hitler Kugeln), 1999 pencil on paper, 29.7 x 42 cm Untitled (AH), 2002 pencil on paper, 45 x 44 cm Student room, 2002 pencil on paper, 64 x 50 cm shown in: “Theorem 4. Aesthtic Agency and the Practices of Autonomy. Part II: Der Prozess / The Trial”, Corner College, Zurich, Switzerland (2017) “Robert Estermann. Manor Kunstpreis Luzern 2007”, Museum of Art Lucerne, Switzerland (solo show) Fiac, with Galerie du Jour agnès b., Paris, France (2002) Art Forum Berlin, with Galerie du Jour agnès b., Berlin, Germany (2002) “Robert Estermann”, Galerie du Jour agnès b., Paris, France (2002, solo show) “drawings”, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, The Netherlands (2001) “Drawing a Line”, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea (1999) Bibliography: Kunstmuseum Luzern, “Robert Estermann, Pleasure, Habeas Corpus, Motoricity. The Great Western Possible”, exhibition catalogue, Edition Fink, ISBN 978-3-03746-105-1, 2007, Zürich (monographical) “Voici un dessin suisse – Swiss Drawings 1990-2010”, jrp|ringier (publisher), ISBN 978-3-03764-100-2 (english edition), ISBN: 978-3-03764-101-9 (french edition), ISBN: 978-3-03764-102-6 (german edition), Zurich, pp. 129-132, 248, 252 Excerpt from Robert Estermann, Blue Rider by Elisabeth Lebovici in: Robert Estermann. Pleasure, Habeas Corpus, Motoricity. The Great Western Possible Ed. Susanne Neubauer, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Museum of Art Lucerne, edition fink, Zurich, 2007, ISBN 978-3-03746-105-1 The path, the journey taken, what we are separated from, still connects. Robert Estermann draws, then looks at what he has done, his starting-point, even if he has to turn round. “Since I was young, my desire was towards things getting round” is written in ballpoint pen, in capital letters, beside a circle, also drawn, not quite turning round, because it is interrupted [Untitled ( Making Small Circles ): no full stop. It’s clearly the “I”, the subject of the drawing, that is decentred here. Not the circle. Ausschnitt aus Robert Estermann zur Einführung von Susanne Neubauer in: Robert Estermann. Pleasure, Habeas Corpus, Motoricity. The Great Western Possible Ed. Susanne Neubauer, Kunstmuseum Luzern, edition fink, Zürich, 2007, ISBN 978-3-03746-105-1 Die Themen der Be- und Entgrenzung und der vielfältigen Unsicherheiten menschlicher Existenz sind in diesen wie auch anderen Zeichnungen mit grosser Verve vorgetragen. Mit Reduziertet und stringenter Einfachheit führen sie komplexe Aussagen vor Augen. Bisweilen auch mit einem Text versehen («Since I was young, my desire was towards things getting round») führen Estermanns Zeichnungen den Betrachter in jenen Zwischenbereich, der zum einen von der persönlichen Empfindsamkeit des Künstlers geprägt scheint, zum andern jedoch eine Distanznahme und Verallgemeinerung erfährt, die der jeweiligen Aussage Allgemeingültigkeit zuweist. Estermann balanciert dabei deutsche und meist englische Titel und Texte mit einer Zeichnung aus, wobei es in der Meisterschaft der Entwürfe liegt, nicht unterscheiden zu können, welche Aussage nun o›ener, vager oder – im Gegenteil – stärker auf den Punkt zu kommen scheint. Excerpt from Robert Estermann, an Introduction by Susanne Neubauer in: Robert Estermann. Pleasure, Habeas Corpus, Motoricity. The Great Western Possible Ed. Susanne Neubauer, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Museum of Art Lucerne, edition fink, Zurich, 2007, ISBN 978-3-03746-105-1 In these drawings like in other works of the artist the themes of limitation and delimitation and the various uncertainties of human existence are presented with great verve. They display his complex messages with stripped-down and stringent simplicity. Often accompanied by a text (“Since I was young, my desire was towards things getting round”), they lead the viewer into that intermediate zone which seems, on the one hand, to be characterised by the artist’s personal sensitivity, while on the other it is subject to a certain detachment and universalisation that assigns general validity to the statement in question. Estermann thus balances German and (mostly) English titles and texts with a drawing sketched with such mastery that it is impossible to tell which statement comes more openly, more vaguely or – quite to the contrary – more intensely to the point.