Two Sticks of Different Length in a Bag • ROBERT ESTERMANN

Two Sticks of Different Length in a Bag, 2026
used courier backpack, wood, watercolor, clear varnish, steel, 125 x 43 x 25 cm

Two Sticks of Different Length in a Bag, 2026
unused courier backpack, wood, steel, 120 x 38 x 21 cm

Two Sticks of Different Length in a Bag, 2026
transparent polyethylene packaging bag, epoxy resin, steel, 120 x 42 x 13 cm

Two Sticks of Different Length in a Bag is exactly what it says: a bag resting on the floor, with two unequal sticks protruding from it. The title inventories the scene with almost bureaucratic innocence, while the objects immediately acquire posture, relation and character.

The arrangement recalls the bindle of a vagabond, reduced to its bare components. The sticks appear as portable possessions that display little beyond their own length. Their unequal lengths are enough to make them partners, companions or rivals. The bag gathers them into a rudimentary body, lending the pair a low, scrotal centre of gravity. At another glance, they resemble two cigars protruding from a pack: a mute advertisement in which each object promotes its own size.

The proposition exists in three versions. A worn black courier backpack contains lacquered wooden sticks whose lower sections fade into pink as they enter the bag. A new backpack holds untreated wood. A transparent packaging bag contains translucent resin sticks. In each work, steel supports pass through the bag and into the sticks, keeping the arrangement upright. Only the transparent version exposes this internal mechanism, making visible the apparatus that the opaque bags absorb into their bodies.

The bags retain the practical memory of carrying, storing and delivering. Placed against the wall, they resemble luggage temporarily set down, while the concealed supports give this casual posture an exact construction.

The pair carries nothing but the difference between them, yet already constitutes a household. Each version restages the same minor arrangement as biography, packaging and anatomy.

shown in:
“ein besonderes, nie gut zu machendes Unglück”, Redaktion Ausstellungs- und Verhandlungsraum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Lucerne, Switzerland (solo show, 2026)