Man of Steel

So we've had it wrong all this while! Well it's time to set things right. Pam & I are ecstatic to be the first ones to break the news that we've unveiled the true identity of 'The Man of Steel' - Pintor Sirait!

And this super man has no cloak and other embarrassing pieces of wardrobe to display, just sheets and pieces of steel that he's contoured and transformed into stunning looking beauties, the shape of Formula 1 race cars. It's a static steely display that the Indonesian artist has set up at ION Orchard. This is Pintor's first solo exhibition of the cars in Singapore and I have every confidence it will be a pole position finish when the exhibition wraps up later this month.


An exhibition is an exhibition is an exhibition. In The Living Room where we've featured countless exhibitions and the artists behind the work, not much gets me high and talking about it days on end. Not until Pintor's race cars zoomed into the radar. I marvel at how a tangle of steel sheets can be galvanised and transformed into a spectacle of steel. And to complete his pieces, he takes out his Colt .38, M16 and AK 47, takes aim and shoots away at them. Not in rage, but as finishing touches. Don't jump the gun (no pun intended) and mistake him for a brazen artist bent on violence; he is but a philosophical sculptor whose quest to understand life and man is melded into his creations. Now THIS is 'amalgamation'!

(Below: Even his exhibition brochure had a bullet hole through it!)

The inspiration to shoot...
"When I travelled around the United States, like many foreign visitors I was initially shocked by the omnipresence of guns, especially the rifles on gun racks in the pick-up trucks...I try to understand this casual acceptance of violence, or potential violencve, by shooting the art objects with various weapons."

Every car sculpture has a story to tell or a question to raise.

'Democracy' (see photo above) has been an ideal for many nations but has become a tainted word in recent years with people going to war and lives being lost in skirmishes and battles. This first is powerfully portrayed by the scuplture ridden with 1,500 bullet holes.

Pintor's Race Cars Come to ION Orchard
18th - 27th Sept 2009
10am - 10pm
ION Orchard, Level 1