The Sylvio Perlstein Collection

The Collection traces the course of twentieth-century art, from Dada and Surrealism to Abstraction, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Minimal Art, Pop Art, Op Art, Arte Povera, Nouveau Réalisme, and Contemporary Art. But above all, ‘A Luta Continua’ testifies to the power of connoisseurship and collecting as a talent, an art in itself.

Curated by David Rosenberg, ‘A Luta Continua’ takes its title from South African artist Thomas Mulcaire’s eponymous neon sculpture, which translates from Portuguese as ‘the struggle continues’ and hangs on the façade of Perlstein’s home. ‘A Luta Continua’ will span across two floors of Hauser & Wirth’s Hong Kong space in the H Queen’s building. This exhibition follows its US presentation at Hauser & Wirth New York last year.

The exhibition focuses on four main pillars of the Perlstein collection: Dada & Surrealism, vintage photography from the twentieth-century, Minimalism, and a compilation of contemporary artists Perlstein is deeply passionate about. There are around 200 works on view by some 112 artists. Among these are Josef Albers, Carl Andre, Diane Arbus, Hans Bellmer, André Breton, Marcel Broodthaers, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Hannah Höch, Jenny Holzer, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, René Magritte, Man Ray, Bruce Nauman, Brice Marden, Robert Morris, Edward Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, and Andy Warhol.

‘A Luta Continua’ offers the public special insight into the traits that define an outstanding collector – an independent, curious personality, unafraid of art that challenges familiar norms. Exhibition curator David Rosenberg describes the Perlstein Collection as ‘a world in itself’ that has developed from its owner’s defining impulse to surround himself with art that ‘unsettles, intrigues, or disturbs him.’

A ‘collection within the collection’, an exceptional selection of twentieth-century photography, will also be presented. On view will be over 80 works by such pioneers of the medium as Eugène Atget, Brassaï, Claude Cahun, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, and László Moholy-Nagy, as well as revered figures Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Walker Evans, Dora Maar, and Man Ray, with whom Perlstein maintained a close friendship until the artist’s death in 1976.

The exhibition presents more than a dozen works by Man Ray that span the photographer’s career, including his ‘Rayographs’, which Man Ray made without a camera by placing objects-such as the thumbtacks, coil of wire, and other circular forms used here-directly on a sheet of photosensitized paper and exposing it to light.