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SINGAPORE: What, did you say the arts and sports don’t mix? Dude, don’t forget, you’re in Uniquely Singapore — mere days before the 2008 Formula 1 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix.
There are a handful of arts and entertainment events that tie up before, during and after this weekend’s night races.
That said, here are two artists with ongoing exhibits that deal with — surprise! — fast cars.
By his reckoning, French photographer Paul-Henri Cahier has covered 430 Grand Prix races. But while today’s commercialised and technology-obsessed F1 is a far cry from what it was before, there’s one element that hasn’t changed for him.
“The magic is always the same as 50 years ago. After the drivers go for their warm-up lap and settle on the grid, and then come out of their cars — they’re like warriors going to battle.”
Photography and F1 buffs can take a trip down memory lane at the ongoing exhibit Grand Prix: The F1 Legend Through Photography.
The landmark show at the Cathay Gallery showcases photographs by Paul-Henri and his late father Bernard. The father-and-son tandem have amassed more than 400,000 photographs for the Cahier Archive since 1952.
The 56-year-old photographer, who’ll be in Singapore from Wednesday, told TODAY how he got the bitten by the photography bug.
“Obviously, the apple did not fall far from the tree,” he said on the phone from Nice, France. “As I grew older, my father would take me to races on holidays.”
By the time he was 14, Cahier’s photos were already being published. While other teenagers were busy taking photos of scenic spots, Cahier was photographing his dad’s driver friends like Jim Clark, Dan Gurney and Jackie Stewart.
He took a break from F1 photography to travel and dabble in painting and music. But in 1982 he returned and took over the family business from his then-semi-retired father.
In July this year, his father passed away at the age of 81 and Paul-Henri is taking care of their precious collection — more or less on his own.
“I’m my own travel agent, photo agency and secretary! A lot of time is spent on archiving my father’s and my own collection.” Thankfully, he gets help from his two sons — even though they are not following in his photographic footsteps.
But what makes racing such a great subject? “You have movement, there are lots of possibilities. You can use your camera like a paintbrush. And there’s the human aspect, too. You have many interesting people and all these strong human emotions are available around you in F1 racing,” he said.
And what does he think of the current crop of drivers?
Cahier describes Fernando Alonso as a “fantastic driver” and Lewis Hamilton as “remarkable — but has the tendency for misjudging”.
But the guy he’s looking at right now is Scuderia Toro Rosso’s sensation Sebastian Vettel, who became the youngest race winner at the age of 21 during the recent Italian Grand Prix.
But his favourite driver is the late three-time world champion, Brazilian Ayrton Senna. “He was everything a driver should be. He was incredibly fast and had that mystique. I was lucky to be able to photograph him throughout his F1 career — from the first race to his last.”
Cahier was there that fateful day in Imola, Italy, for the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix — Senna’s last race. But while he has photos of Senna’s final lap, Cahier captured none of the fatal accident itself, as he was 400m away from the crash.
But it’s one photo he doesn’t regret missing. “I wouldn’t have liked to be there.”
Grand Prix: The F1 Legend Through Photography runs until Oct 31 at the CathayGallery, The Cathay.
For artist Lee Gilbert, the Formula 1 is much more than a race. The “60-something” semi-retired professor, who occasionally teaches at the Nanyang Business School, has already bought a ticket and plans to experience the real thing“unfiltered”.
Gilbert knows a thing or two about fast cars: He used to test drive a range of sports cars for distributors while still a college student in the ’60s. Before that, he was an amateur race car driver who drove a Porsche Speedster.
His experiences are evident in his solo show, Launch! Capturing The Subculture of Speed in Pigment, on at Pan Pacific Singapore. It consists of 22 paintings that deal with the culture of car races.
“There are a few paintings of cars, but the idea was to catch the experience,” said United States-born Gilbert, a Permanent Resident married to a retired doctor. He now works at the Barrosa Studio in Wessex Estate.
One of the works, Murder Mile, is of a “generic ’60s Cooper-Climax traversing the old Thomson Road during the old Singapore Grand Prix.”
“You’re trying to capture the driver’s vulnerability. It’s a dangerous road and it’s raining and if he hits anything it’s gonna be the end of him.”
Alternately working from imagined scenes to using sketches and photographs to TV screen shots, Gilbert came up with works such as Le Mans False Dawn, which shows a Gulf Porsche 917s as driven by Steve McQueen in the movie, and Legacy, where you can see the silhouette of Ferrari’s first non-Italian driver Mike Hawthorne.
But the idea to do this timely exhibit was more serendipitous than planned. “A couple of years ago, I did a street scene of Little India, which included cars. And people said I had a nice touch with cars.” The news of F1 coming to Singapore prompted him to start a series of paintings.
For his next project, Gilbert is doing a series on cars in movies.
He’s thinking of looking at moments such as that famous chicken run scene with James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause; the Plymouth named Christine in the eponymous Stephen King novel-turned-movie; and the Minis in The Italian Job.
But there’s one movie he won’t do. “The Fast and the Furious. I wouldn’t have an idea what to do!”
Launch! Capturing TheSubculture Of Speed In Pigment runs until Oct 3 at Pan PacificSingapore’s Public Art Spacee. - TODAY/ar
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