Hauser
& Wirth, New York, 22nd Street
CHELSEA | NEW YORK
APRIL 26, 2018-JULY 27, 2018
Unfolding
across all three floors of Hauser & Wirth’s 22nd Street location, ‘A Luta
Continua’ is the first United States presentation of the Sylvio Perlstein
Collection. Over the course of more than five decades, Perlstein has assembled
an intensely personal collection rooted in a passion for the work of
groundbreaking artists; a commitment to self-education; and an affinity for a
wide range of mediums. Remarkably diverse, 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 to collecting as a talent – an
art in itself – that must be honed through sustained,
sometimes courageous, and often joyful personal effort.
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. The
exhibition presents more than 360 works by some 250 artists. Among these are
Josef Albers, Carl Andre, Diane Arbus, Hans Bellmer, André Breton, Marcel
Broodthaers, Alexander Calder, 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, Robert
Smithson, Jean Tinguely, and Andy Warhol.
In addition
to significant concentrations in the areas of Minimalism and Pop Art, a
highlight of the Perlstein Collection, featured prominently in this exhibition,
is an exceptional ‘collection within the collection’ of twentieth-century
photography. On view will be over 150 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 ‘Untitled’ (1923) and ‘La Colifichet’ (1923), as
well as his startling portraits of early twentieth-century French luminaries
such as ‘Antonin Artaud’ (1929) and Marcel Duchamp, ‘La Tonsure’ (1919).
‘A Luta
Continua’ offers the public special insight into the traits that define an
outstanding collector – a highly independent, deeply curious personality,
unafraid of art that challenges familiar norms. Delighted by the discovery and
study of vibrant, evocative, and surprising objects, Perlstein has sought out
artists who are committed to breaking new ground. 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.’
Raised in
Rio de Janeiro, Sylvio Perlstein has lived and traveled extensively between
Brazil, Belgium, France, and the United States. Time and travel played
fundamental roles in the evolution of his collection. He began in early
adulthood to visit exhibitions, meet artists, exchange ideas with dealers and
other collectors, and ultimately established a network of lifelong
relationships that sustained an intimate, ever-growing understanding of
artistic breakthroughs, revealed in a cache of hundreds of artworks in his
holdings.
Perlstein credits
his enthusiasm for collecting art to his time as a teenager in Rio de Janeiro,
where, on a walk home from the beach, he persuaded a florist to sell him a
painting that caught his eye in a flower shop. From that moment on, Perlstein
recalled, he ‘never stopped seeking out art.’
In the late
1950s, Perlstein returned to Belgium, the country his family had fled to escape
Nazism. There he began seeking out and purchasing work from local artists. Like
the florist in Rio, Antwerp-based painter Floris Jespers was initially
resistant to this enthusiastic stranger; however, he eventually acquiesced to
sell Perlstein a painting that remains in the Collection today. Soon
thereafter, Perlstein’s unique combination of persistence, knowledge, and pure
love of art would similarly win over other Belgian artists, including E. L. T.
Mesens, Marcel Mariën, René Magritte, Pol Bury, and Marcel Broodthaers, whose
art is represented in ‘A Luta Continua’ by a group of six exceptional works.
Perlstein
often went to great lengths to seek out the artists who most intrigued him. In
the late 1970s, he wrote to outsider artist Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern, who
was interned in a psychiatric hospital in Berlin, inquiring about purchasing
works. Schröder-Sonnenstern replied that if Perlstein came with a bottle of
whiskey, they could talk about his art. The burgeoning collector gamely agreed,
hiding the alcohol in his raincoat to avoid detection by hospital guards.
Schröder-Sonnenstern’s ‘Spitting Child, or the moral Eva’ (1956) is featured in
‘A Luta Continua.’
Equally
determined to acquire works from Hannah Höch, Perlstein traveled to the
artist’s remote home in Berlin-Heiligensee, knocked on her door, and purchased
‘Look, Beauties’ (1920) and ‘Rooster’ (1919), both of which are included in the
exhibition. Later, he would travel to Holland to meet Paul Citroen; to Tel Aviv
to visit Marcel Janco, from whom he would purchase some of his finest works of
Dada art; and to Paris, where he first met Man Ray, in the 1960s, who sparked
Perlstein’s passion for collecting Surrealist work.
From the
1960s to the 1980s, Perlstein spent prolonged amounts of time in New York,
often frequenting Max’s Kansas City – the storied nightclub that served as the
premier gathering spot for the city’s artists, writers, and musicians – and
quickly becoming an important figure in the downtown scene. During this time,
he developed close relationships with artists such as Keith Haring, Sol Lewitt,
and Bruce Nauman, regularly visiting their studios. Eight works by Nauman,
including his 1989 sculpture ‘Hanging Heads #3 (Green Andrew with Tongue /
Green Julie, Mouth Open)’ and his ‘Good Boy Bad Boy’ video from 1985, are
included in the exhibition.
Perlstein’s
devotion to collecting and connoisseurship endures: he maintains close
relationships with the living artists whose work he continues to champion and
is still building upon his holdings. When viewed together, the seemingly
far-flung works that comprise the Perlstein Collection suggest unexpected and
often profound affinities and echoes, with each area of concentration serving
to contextualize and expand our insights into the next.
Info
548 West
22nd Street Chelsea - New York, NY, USA 10011
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