2000s–2024
From Africa Klashorst moved on to Southeast Asia, where he lived and worked for most of his later life, in Bangkok, Pattaya and the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. Many of the works in this collection were made there.
He was candid about his mixed feelings. He missed the Amsterdam studio where many people came together to discuss art and life, and he found the traditional art around him uninspiring. At the same time, being far away from the art world gave him freedom: “I am an outsider like Gauguin was … somewhere on an island.”
The S-21 portraits
In 2011 Klashorst showed a series of about fifty portraits at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, the former S-21 prison of the Khmer Rouge, in honour of its victims. The exhibition attracted international press attention. In his novel he described how the show, painted in pop art and cubist style, was closed five minutes after the opening and only reopened weeks later. Four of the S-21 portraits are available in this collection.
Frankfurt, 2016
From Asia he kept exhibiting in Europe. In September 2016 Kunsthalle Ludwig in Frankfurt-Höchst showed a new series painted in Phnom Penh and Bangkok, which he described as “Donald Duck meets Karel Appel”. A local newspaper called him “a provocative artist” who did not want to make “pleasing art”.
In his final years he lived in Thailand and Cambodia. Peter Klashorst died on 11 September 2024 in Amsterdam, at the age of 67.