Engelhardt, Jan

Jan Engelhardt, Nuernberg, Germany

I am Jan.

Delivered by Caesarean section in Nuremberg on March 27, 1977. In retrospect, this start in life was something of an omen. After four years of elementary school and ten years of high school, I solemnly received a letter stating that I could study, so I tried to do so, but had to realize
that the will has not much in common with the ability. Occasionally I try my hand at computer science and web design.

But my passion is photography. It is my LSD and my cigarette afterwards. It is my constant companion and my inner drive.

My small planets are meant to invite the viewer to see the world as a search picture, in which there is always something to discover, and at the same time remind him how amazing it is, and that without it we would be quite lost.

Small planet - Fallscheer Haus

Following Francis Picabia's famous phrase: "The head is round so that thinking can change direction," Jan Engelhardt, 34, has chosen a very special form of panoramic photography with his spectacular panoramic views. In his precise panoramic views, however, he goes far beyond the pure depiction of reality. Every collection of vehicles, every stack of containers, every housing estate, every urban square or industrial building reveals its own world in his "small planets" exhibitions. Important things come into focus and become significant, unimportant things become tiny and move to the margins. From detailed landscape and architectural photographs, the photo artist creates worlds that seem to float in a sea of clouds or revolve around themselves like spherical Lego bricks. Thus, image by image, a cosmos of its own is created, which in each individual work of photographic art invites the viewer to change his view of the familiar, to change his point of view - in short: to turn his own visual habits upside down for once.

With his pictures of the Fallscheer House at Küferstraße 8 in Esslingen am Neckar, the artist uniquely documents a journey back in time to its past and shows us the charm of the listed building, where leather goods and baby carriages were sold until recently, in its own very special way. For never again will it be in this state between yesterday and today, as if preparing for tomorrow. Display cases and cabinets hover on the ceiling, doors plunge down a floor and stairs lead into the wall. Nothing seems to stand where reality would have it, and yet everything has its intended place. In the context of these photographs, 12 pairs of images were created from small planet and iPlanet. The Photographers Network.