17.03. – 13.05.2023
For this exhibition we have taken an “archeological” approach, looking back at an older series of Robert Estermann’s drawings Four Boys / Four Horses (1996). What are the questions that come up when we encounter this image? The boy seems to be otherworldly, with his Mona Lisa half-smile, gazing at us innocently.
Last Tango, Zürich
For this exhibition we have taken an “archeological” approach, looking back at an older series of Robert Estermann’s drawings Four Boys / Four Horses (1996). What are the questions that come up when we encounter this image? The boy seems to be otherworldly, with his Mona Lisa half-smile, gazing at us innocently.
The horse, of uncertain gender, is calm and surprisingly curious. Could the line drawing be abstracting, impairing, or even subverting our full comprehension of what’s going on in the image? What is it that is making us deal or not deal with these unruly lines?
The source materials at the entrance produce a time travel back to the artist’s studio. It’s 1995-96, when Robert was studying at École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris. Four Boys / Four Horses started as one drawing before becoming four drawings, with each image staging a singular experience.
The source materials at the entrance produce a time travel back to the artist’s studio. It’s 1995-96, when Robert was studying at École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris. Four Boys / Four Horses started as one drawing before becoming four drawings, with each image staging a singular experience.
Exhibited at Last Tango, Boy / Horse is the preparatory drawing for a mural inside a Parisian staircase, later becoming the template for Four Boys / Four Horses #1. At this point in time, three of the original drawings of Four Boys / Four Horses have apparently been misplaced by a gallery. However, the paper cuts (templates) are as Robert describe them, “the DNA that never got destroyed.” Ultimately, as the exhibition goes on, Robert will perform on the paper, producing a new work. One of the rare constants in his work is the expressionism of the angles. 
Four Boys / Four Horses #2 #3 #4, 2023
Robert gets excited by the idea of movement of a line, the radicality of the angle, the freedom of a line to relate to our existence. The three “missing” drawings exist fictionally in a composite photograph titled Four Boys / Four Horses #2 #3 #4, sourced from the artist’s archive. Robert is standing proudly in front of his work. What happens when we see three of these images in their original frieze-like hanging? The mugs, because of their mass-produced everyday object appeal, enable another access to this drawing series.
Riding.Vision is a fully working and daily updated online concept store and research platform that was founded in 2016 as an art project. It is a work in progress. While the theme and history of (human) rider and horse is anything but new, Riding.Vision's approach is unique, as it liquifies the boundaries between traditions, narratives, subcultural expressions, desires, the non-compatible, and the potential embarrassment. It also tells stories of obsession, dominance, colonialism, spectacle and modernity. Avoiding habitual safeguards offered by dogma, taste judgment or cynicism, Riding.Vision assumes the role of a collector and incubator through its own post-colonial mass production and added value of images system. One of Estermann's postulates here is that the resulting new composite materialities of the products and the roughness are agents of new liberties and great, unexplored chances.
Text by Last Tango and Riding.Vision
Boy / Horse (preparatory drawing for a mural inside a Parisian staircase, later becoming the template for Four Boys / Four Horses #1), 1995
marker, charcoal, pencil and tape on brown paper, 224.5 x 169.2 cm
Boy / Horse (preparatory drawing for a mural inside a Parisian staircase, later becoming the template for Four Boys / Four Horses #1), 1995
marker, charcoal, pencil and tape on brown paper, 224.5 x 169.2 cm
Four Boys / Four Horses Mugs, 2000
31 sets of four porcelain mugs with burned in print, each 11 x 8.5 x 8.5 cm
The mugs, because of their mass-produced everyday object appeal, enable another access to this drawing series.
Photos by Kilian Bannwart, courtesy of Last Tango
The mugs, because of their mass-produced everyday object appeal, enable another access to this drawing series.
Photos by Kilian Bannwart, courtesy of Last Tango
Riding.Vision is a fully working and daily updated online concept store and research platform that was founded in 2016 as an art project. It is a work in progress. While the theme and history of (human) rider and horse is anything but new, Riding.Vision's approach is unique, as it liquifies the boundaries between traditions, narratives, subcultural expressions, desires, the non-compatible, and the potential embarrassment. It also tells stories of obsession, dominance, colonialism, spectacle and modernity. Avoiding habitual safeguards offered by dogma, taste judgment or cynicism, Riding.Vision assumes the role of a collector and incubator through its own post-colonial mass production and added value of images system. One of Estermann's postulates here is that the resulting new composite materialities of the products and the roughness are agents of new liberties and great, unexplored chances.
[1] “Liminality as a concept brings together queer ways of thinking through unboundedness, spillage, fluidity, multiplicity, and processes of contingent, non-linear becoming, as well as the relations of power and regulation that seek their stability or closure. It can ground these in everyday lived realities.” Loren March, "Queer and trans* geographies of liminality: A literature review", Progress in Human Geography Volume 45, Issue 3 (June 2021): https://journals.
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