Collecting Cambodian contemporary art has given me the unique opportunity to experience and participate in a process of art developing from „year zero“ after the genocidal regime of the Red Khmer had exterminated about 90% of the country’s artists.

My first active experience in this regard were the paintings of the now deceased Svay Ken which I came to know in the mid-1990s. They are heavily influenced by Cambodia’s dark past but later I learnt that while art certainly has to reflect conditions and history of a society, Cambodian artists did not get overwhelmed by the atrocities many of their families had gone through but developed new and individual ways to express themselves – to the point of conceptual artists like Pich Sopheap whose work barely incorporates elements of the Red Khmer-period.

My collection, compiled between 1998 and 2019, tries to reflect those currents in Cambodian art and, while certainly not exhaustive, might serve as an example how challenging political, historical, developmental and social issues are reflected in the contemporary art scene.

Collecting Cambodian Contemporary Art from “Year Zero” (2021)

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From Seed to Bloom (2019)