Plate #03 – Cascades, Yerevan, Armenia, 2026 (detail)

Jan C. Schlegel

Handmade platinum prints from large-format negatives, in which people, organisms and buildings are approached alike: as portraits, presences to be encountered rather than explained.

Selected works

Jan C. Schlegel began as a fashion and commercial photographer, walked away from it for years to work on humanitarian projects in Africa, living inside the communities he served, and came back to photography a different kind of maker. Now he works slowly and by hand. He photographs on film with large-format cameras, and every print he makes himself in the darkroom, in platinum and palladium, in albumen or silver gelatin, so that each one is a single physical object whose surface and depth belong to the image. Whatever stands before his camera, a person, a jellyfish drifting in the dark or a Brutalist building on a city edge, he meets the way a portraitist meets a sitter: with patience, without a story imposed on it, reduced to what is essential.

On view at PAN Amsterdam 2026, stand 85, 31 Oct – 8 Nov 2026

A concrete façade made of identical square windows in a dense grid, brightening towards the top and sinking into darkness below; a few pigeons sit along the sloping roof edge. — On view
*Plate #06 – City Parkhouse, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2026*
Handmade platinum/palladium print on Arches Platine Rag, framed
50 × 40 · 76 × 56 cm
Edition of 6 + 2 AP per format
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A tall concrete tower on a pebble beach carrying a saucer-shaped top storey with a band of windows and a smaller disc halfway up its stem, under a soft grey sky. — On view
*From the series Silent Giants, 2026*
Handmade platinum/palladium print on Arches Platine Rag, framed
50 × 40 · 76 × 56 cm
Edition of 6 + 2 AP per format
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A round concrete building on a raised base with a cantilevered upper storey and a curved balcony carrying lettering, seen from below against a pale sky. — On view
*From the series Silent Giants, 2026*
Handmade platinum/palladium print on Arches Platine Rag, framed
50 × 40 · 76 × 56 cm
Edition of 6 + 2 AP per format
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A tall triangular concrete spire narrowing to a sharp point against an empty pale sky, with a row of small openings along its edge. — On view
*From the series Silent Giants, 2026*
Handmade platinum/palladium print on Arches Platine Rag, framed
50 × 40 · 76 × 56 cm
Edition of 6 + 2 AP per format
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Curved concrete ramps of a spiral parking structure stacked in tight rows, their thin railings catching the light against deep shadow. — On view
*From the series Silent Giants, 2026*
Handmade platinum/palladium print on Arches Platine Rag, framed
50 × 40 · 76 × 56 cm
Edition of 6 + 2 AP per format
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View all works

The negative remembers the light. The print carries my interpretation of that memory.
Jan C. Schlegel

Biography

Jan C. Schlegel (b. 1965, Germany) is a contemporary artist working with historical photographic processes. He photographs with large-format cameras on film and makes every print himself in the darkroom, in platinum/palladium, albumen and silver gelatin. Each print is a singular physical object, defined by its surface, depth and tonal structure, in which image and material are inseparable.

Trained as a photographer, Schlegel first worked in commercial and fashion photography before stepping away from the medium for several years to take part in humanitarian projects in Africa, living for long periods within local communities. His return to photography marked a decisive shift from image-making as a profession to a sustained artistic practice shaped by personal experience and long-term observation. Portraiture occupies a central place in that practice: images built on trust and presence, stripped of narrative context and reduced to what is essential.

Alongside portraiture he brings the same approach to other subjects. In Of Aliens, Mermaids and Medusas (jellyfish) and Life on Earth (phytoplankton) he transforms fragile organisms into complex visual structures while reflecting on ecological interdependence; in Silent Giants (2026) he turns to Brutalist architecture, from Hong Kong to Yerevan, Warsaw and Amsterdam, photographing each building as a presence rather than a structure. Several of his series are conceived as complete bodies of work and are also offered as strictly limited portfolio editions.

His work has been presented at Paris Photo every year since 2013 and at fairs including the AIPAD Photography Show in New York, Photo London, Art Basel and Art Cologne, and is held in private collections across Europe and beyond.

Selected exhibitions and fairs

2026 — AIPAD Photography Show, New York; Photo London
2025 — Paris Photo; AIPAD Photography Show, New York; Photo London; MIA Photo Fair, Milan
2024 — Paris Photo; Photo London; Modern Art Fair, Paris; Art Miami Context
2023 — Paris Photo; Photo London; Haute Photography, Rotterdam
2022 — Paris Photo; Of Aliens, Mermaids & Medusas, Photo London; Haute Photography, Amsterdam
2019 — Creatures of the Seven Seas and Of Monster and Dragon, Festival La Gacilly-Baden Photo, Baden (Austria); Paris Photo
2018 — Of Monster and Dragon, Festival Photo La Gacilly (France); Paris Photo
2013–2017 — Paris Photo (annually); Art Geneva (2016); Art Southampton (2014); Festival Photo La Gacilly (2013)

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