Bernd Klüser (*1945 in Wuppertal) is a gallery-owner, editor and art collector. 1968 Marriage to Verena Klüser, nee Mittelsten Scheid, two children.

Beginnings
In 1968 he moved to Munich, where he completed his study of law (1st and 2nd state examinations, admitted to the bar in 1974). Since 1969, project-related collaboration with Galerie Heiner Friedrich and first contacts with artists such as Gerhard Richter, Blinky Palermo, Georg Baselitz, Sigmar Polke and Gilbert & George.

Establishing the Edition and Gallery Schellmann + Klüser
As from 1970, editorial collaboration with fellow student Jörg Schellmann. From the beginning, their focus was on the publication of Joseph Beuys’s multiples (including the publication of a first catalogue raisonné of the artist’s editions in 1971 – which has now been reprinted eight times). In 1975, the company was renamed Edition Schellmann + Klüser at 12 Maximilianstraße (later also in New York). In 1976, Schellmann + Klüser realised an exhibition of the Beuys environment ‘zeige deine Wunde’. The acquisition of the work by the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in 1979 triggered an art scandal in Munich, which was still very conservative at that time; subsequently, it became easier for Munich’s museums to engage progressively with international contemporary art.

The joint edition existed until 1985, publishing prints and multiples by internationally significant artists quite early on. In 1989, the Museum of Modern Art in New York honoured the edition programme with a special exhibition.

Galerie Klüser
In 1978, Bernd Klüser also opened his own gallery at 12 c Maximilianstraße (for strategic reasons, it operated as Galerie Schellmann + Klüser until 1985). On the one hand, its international profile was characterised by continuous, close collaboration with Joseph Beuys and, from 1980, by exhibition projects (including graphic editions) with Andy Warhol, which continued until the death of both artists in 1986 and 1987 respectively. On the other hand, the gallery presented – often for the first time in Germany or Europe – young artists such as Tony Cragg, the Americans Robert Mangold, Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, David Salle, Jack Goldstein and Matt Mullican, and the Italian transavantguardia, for example Enzo Cucchi or Mimmo Paladino. Works by Francis Picabia, Jannis Kounellis, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Asger Jorn and Gilbert & George were also exhibited.

Schellmann + Klüser parted company in 1985. Galerie Bernd Klüser moved into two floors of the prestigious old villa in the park of the Munich Art Academy. It expanded its programme through the German representation of Robert Motherwell’s estate and exhibitions by Alex Katz, Christian Boltanski, Jan Fabre, Julião Sarmento, Olaf Metzel, Blinky Palermo, James Brown, Jonathan Lasker, Ettore Sottsass, Stephan Balkenhol, Donald Baechler, Sean Scully and Anish Kapoor, among others. Sophisticated group exhibitions such as ‘Der gefrorene Leopard’ or ‘Reflections on Light’ supplemented the programme.

In 2001, daughter Julia Klüser joined the gallery and shortly afterwards, she became a partner in the company. From 2002 to 2022, another location was open in Munich’s Museumsquartier, Galerie Klüser 2. This provided the flexibility to show larger exhibitions in both galleries and to present more younger artists, such as Bernardí Roig, Jorinde Voigt, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Natalia Zaluska, Lori Nix, Gregor Hildebrandt and Constantin Luser.

Publication and Edition Activity
The gallery’s own publishing activities have continued since 1985 with numerous group portfolios, suites and single prints by the gallery artists. Parallel to the gallery’s activities, many publications were produced in collaboration with the artists, but also with Ernst Jünger, Hans-Georg Gadamer and the estate of James Joyce. The seminal work ‘Die Kunst der Ausstellung’ (The Art of the Exhibition) was published on the history of art exhibitions. In addition, Bernd Klüser has published many of his own texts (often for museum catalogues) and created films about E. W. Nay, Joseph Beuys and the important exhibition in Basel, ‘Skulptur im 20. Jahrhundert’ (Sculpture in the 20th Century).

Awards and Positions
In 1996, Bernd Klüser became a guest lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, continuing there for seven semesters.

In 2014, Bernd Klüser and his wife Verena, who had worked in the gallery for many years, were awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande (Federal Cross of Merit). This was followed in 2016 by the FEAGA Lifetime Award from the European Gallery Association for exemplary, enduring art mediation.

About Julia Klüser
Bernd Klüser’s daughter Julia joined the gallery business as co-managing director in April 2001. After studying art history in Munich, she gained plentiful experience at home and abroad, including internships in Paris (Galeries Magazine, Kunstmagazin), New York (Whitney Museum), and London (Christies, Department of Impressionism and 19th-Century Art). Starting in February 2000, she worked for Anthony d’Offay in London as personal assistant to senior director Robin Vousden, where she remained until February 2001.

In April of the same year, she returned to Munich and became co-director of her father’s gallery. Shortly afterwards, the two of them opened their second location, Galerie Klüser 2 in Türkenstrasse. Here, the intention was to give young positions in particular premises that offered ideal conditions with a shop window front and a smaller size. Artists such as Jorinde Voigt, Gregor Hildebrandt, Isca Greenfield-Sanders and Conrad Shawcross were shown there early on in their careers.

She also curated the first major museum exhibitions of some of these artists’ work in the following years, such as Isca and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, as co-curator) in 2006, or Jorinde Voigt – Nexus (Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal; also, as editor of the catalogue) in 2011.

Julia has been a partner in the gallery since 2012. More exhibitions followed, for example in 2013, as co-curator of Tony Cragg – Escultures (La Llotja, Palma de Mallorca, in collaboration with the Government of the Balearic Islands).

In 2017, following training in naturopathic medicine, Julia opened a naturopathic practice, which has now become her professional focus.