N E W S:

Klaus' essay 'Photography - Museum: On Posing, Imageness and the Punctum' has been published in September 2011 in the volume: The Thing about Museums: Objects and Experience, Representation and Contestation, S. Dudley, J. Barnes, J. Binnie, J. Petrov, J. Walklate (eds), Routledge.

ABOUT the Museum Clausum:

The name, Museum Clausum, which translates as ‘enclosed’ or ‘sealed’ museum, is adopted from Sir John Browne’s 17th Century pamphlet, ‘Musaeum Clausum’, an inventory of fantasised objects that form a fictional collection. This ironic treatise on the Early Modern novelty of assembling objects in the manner of a wunderkammer is hence a comment on the questionable artificiality of museum-type display, as old as the museum itself.
The aim of the Museum Clausum remains to produce temporary exhibitions that reflect on our relationship to objects and the importance of the role and function of museums for our culture and self-awareness. Museum Clausum exhibitions reflect on the culture of exhibiting by putting museums on display. By emphasising the artifice in which objects are staged, the Museum Clausum aims to draw attention to the relative transparency of the institution when constructing and presenting narratives. This, by default, creates room to question those very narratives on display whilst exposing the museum’s complicity in perpetuating desired narratives and concealing others. Whilst the work of the Museum Clausum is a critique of the institution it is also a homage and an acknowledgement of the museum space as a possible medium for critical art practice as proved through a long tradition of artists who have worked on or with the museum. It is hence one of the aims of the Museum Clausum to foster and promote increased critical ‘museum literacy’, as current changes in museums’ policies are in danger to remain inadequate and superficial if these are not additionally supported by changes in museum visitors’ way of perceiving or ‘reading’ museums. Otherwise the museum will continue to simply 'tell' stories – only that the stories told have been altered to suit current political trends.
The Museum Clausum is a project by Klaus Wehner, a visual artist whose work has focused on the museum for a number of years. Whilst the above aims are still high on the agenda for Klaus, he has adopted the name as a general artist's pseudonym. He has photographed museum interiors for a number of years in his distinctly 'subjective' style, which is created mainly 'in camera', and which he considers as matching thus unmasking the museum's own curatorial artificiality. Presenting "Museum Clausum, Wundercamera" as a 'collection' of the Museum Clausum, emphasises Klaus' dedicated questioning of concepts such as curating, collecting and art making. By adopting a corporate, institutional identity, Klaus presents himself as collector and presenter of artefacts and images rather than as 'artist'. Klaus is currently studying towards a practice-based PhD in Visual Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, based on his museum work. His thesis focuses on issues around museums and photography.

If you would like to be kept informed about future projects, please send an email.