future: novembre 2024 solo exhibition, Kloster Kamp, Kamp-Lintfort

Catalogues

Texts

Cham, 1-13

Thomas Schiela’s painting “Cham, 1-13” depicts freshly germinating greenery on the walls of an historical temple of the Cham, an age-old ethnic minority in the jungle of Vietnam. For centuries on end, this secluded people suffered oppression by the Vietnamese. The final destruction of their 13th century temples, however, was left to the bombers of the Vietnam War. At My Son, a village not far from the town of Hoi An on the Perfume River, several temple walls were restored a few years ago with funds from UNESCO.
When Schiela visited My Son in January 2013, he discovered the bright, freshly sprouting creepers that had begun to spread evenly over the restored walls of the temples. He was overwhelmed – not just by the beauty of the picture that presented itself but also by its symbolic strength as a metaphor of destruction and a new beginning.

The entire text of Renate Petzinger found in catalog CORSO.