It just needs to be pruned :-) Unless evergreen, most clematis leave winter looking like a tangled mass of dead vines. That's one of primary reasons they ARE pruned......to keep the vine neat and tidy and reduce that dead build-up

Where are you located (nearest big city) and when did it bloom last summer? While it is not necessarily critical to prune according to group, to know these items can help determine what you can do now.

I live in South Jersey. I started getting flower buds June 1st last year.
I get so nervous about pruning knowing that you need to prune according to groups. Don't know which group this is in
Should I prune this now? How?

take your hand pruners.. and just take out all the dead stuff ... all the way back to live growth ... and dont worry if you snip off the wrong piece every now and then ...

i wouldnt be surprised if you didnt remove 60 to 75% ... and it will look bare and ugly ...

but its early spring.. give it a month to get moving.. and you ought to be all set ...

and since you knew the pruning calendar.. start using it ... this is why they have them.. so your plant doesnt end up looking like it does now...

ken

btw.. there is a perennial forum ... you might learn a lot more there about perennials ...

book mark it: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/perennials

The problem with ken's suggestion is that a lot of that deadwood is attached to live growth. And at the wrong end..... Cutting back from what appears to be dead growth will typically result in removing a significant portion of live growth as well.

But not to worry!! You can cut it back now, And you can start at either end :-) Pruning a clematis vine outside of pruning group instructions or at the 'wrong' time will rarely cause anything other than a delayed bloom cycle.

Yours is most likely a pruning group 2 vine, so one that flowers first on last seasons' growth then usually again later on the current season's. You can easily find instructions online for pruning these clems as well as the other groups but I prefer to simplify things. I have grown too many clematis over the years to fuss about with pruning groups and which ones belong where that I now just lump them into a 'prune' or 'don't prune' grouping. The 'don't prune' are any evergreen or winter/early spring flowering vines. These bloom on old growth and typically bloom before the end of May so pruning will remove any potential for flowering....unless done immediately after flowering if needed to control size.

All the rest I prune down to the second or third set of buds from the base in early spring - a hard prune like is suggested for pruning group 3's. In colder zones, the type 2's are often knocked back to the roots by winter anyway so a hard pruning is not much different. All it does is delay the start of the bloom cycle of these slightly....a few weeks to a month at most.

When I worked for a large wholesale clematis grower, the vines for sale (1G or larger containers) would get cut back by the staff routinely to keep them from getting all tangled together. It never bothered them at all and they just continued to push out new growth and flowers.

Not sure why the suggestion to visit the Perennials forum. If you want to discuss clematis, visit the Clematis or the Vines forums. But if you want to discuss herbaceous perennials that would be an appropriate venue :-)