Jürgen Klauke: Aesthetic Paranoia explores the provocative and boundary-pushing practice of Jürgen Klauke, one of Germany’s most influential photo and media artists since the 1970s.

The publication accompanies a major exhibition of his work and situates his artistic development within broader cultural and theoretical contexts.

Klauke’s work consistently interrogates norms of gender, identity, and behavior by employing his own body as a primary site of performance, photographic intervention, and mediated representation. Rather than presenting stable identities or fixed narratives, Klauke’s images provoke ambiguity, transformation, and dislocation. Through staged self-portraits, manipulated photographic sequences, and media-inflected constructions, he challenges expectations of presence, authenticity, and the visual order.

The title Aesthetic Paranoia refers to a sustained tension in Klauke’s work between control and the irrational, the polished and the unstable, the symbolic and the visceral. His imagery frequently moves from minimalist reduction to surreal excess, uncovering underlying anxieties of contemporary culture and visual experience. The book combines high-quality reproductions with critical texts that foreground Klauke’s engagement with psychoanalysis, performativity, and media critique, offering insight into a practice where aesthetic form and subjective experience are inseparably intertwined.