Arno Raffael Minkkinen is a Finnish-American photographer who explores the relationship between the body and the environment with photographs, inhabiting the space between self-portraiture and landscape photography.
Arno Raffael Minkkinen, a photographer based on the East Coast of the United States, has created surreal self-portrait photographs over the past 40 years, in which his nude becomes an element of the surrounding landscape.
"I started photography decades before Photoshop was invented. What you see in my image frame happens in the viewfinder of my camera. ”
Minkkinen prides himself on working without Photoshop. He wrote on the website: "Some of my photos may seem simple, but in reality, they can test the limits of the human body's ability or willingness to take risks." ”
The photographer's unorthodox black-and-white self-portraits feature naked natural scenes interspersed with isolated elements of his nude.
My mom was beautiful. She was really looking forward to a girl, a beauty, a princess. But I was born. Far from being a prince... Now I understand how my mother felt when she looked at me," Arnaud began his story. -I had several surgeries. But that didn't make my face any better. Then we moved to the United States and our family had some difficulties. For my mother, I became the embodiment of all the difficulties she had to endure.
Minkkien's images exude a timeless, surreal quality; His body looked like a natural feature of the landscape.
For nearly five decades, Finnish-American photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen has been photographing his nude self-portraits under natural conditions. He doesn't just take pictures of himself against the backdrop of nature. His body, arms, legs and torso in the photograph appear to blend in with the world around him.
What's even more striking about his extraordinary work is that they're all real, which is impressive considering that some of his photographs leave him lying in the snow or even under the snow.
"When you're fishing, you need to untangle part of the line to fish, but you never need to untangle the whole of the line to fish. I believe in some secrets that exist in a person that I don't want to reveal myself completely to anyone, even to myself.
Arno never used models in his work.
- I just can't take responsibility for putting the model in such difficult conditions. This is normal for me. In the snow, in the water, on the cliffs ... Sometimes my wife helps me with my work.
Photographers usually work alone and don't allow anyone to look at themselves through the camera viewfinder. The composition in the picture may seem very simple, and most scenes do not seem to be staged in reality, but the photographer's work is often associated with danger and risk to life. The photographer jumped into the rapid current, lay on the ice, and put himself in danger of being on the edge of the cliff.
Minkkinen blurs all boundaries like a chameleon, and in the decades before Photoshop came along, photographers began taking these bold and effortless photos, simply using a 9-second shutter delay to have time to appear in the frame.
"When there is only the landscape and the body, the painting has no age. ’’
Arnaud's nudes in his works never look provocative. This must be because photographers have an absolutely unique view of it:
If I were to wear at least one piece of clothing, it would be a fashion photo. There will be a story about shirts, ties, jackets or shoes... Being naked immediately connected me to nature. It is associated with the nudity of water, trees, and stones.
And the sky. It's just normal and natural. It's always me too, because I don't want anyone to undress or hang on a cliff in the cold... In any case, you need to be naked in any weather," he shared.
About Arno Rafael Minkkinen
Arno Rafael Minkkinen is a Finnish-American photographer. Minkkinen was born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1945 and immigrated to the United States in 1951. He graduated from Wagner College with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, and in 1971 he began shooting self-portraits as an advertising copywriter on Madison Avenue in New York.
He later studied at the Rhode Island School of Design with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography in 1974. For the past four decades, Minkkinen has worked as a teacher, curator, and writer while continuing to devote his photographic research and energies to self-portraits: untouched images of human figures in natural landscapes.
Professor Minkkinen has presented more than 100 solo exhibitions and more than 200 group exhibitions at galleries, festivals and museums in more than 25 states and the same number of countries around the world.
In 1993, the Finnish government awarded him the Knight of the Order of lion, First Class, in recognition of his support for curatorial service in Finnish photography.
He received the 2006 Finnish National Photographic Art Award and the 2013 Lucy Award at Carnegie Hall for outstanding achievements in fine art. His autobiographical and novel script Rainhouse received financial support from the Finnish Film Foundation in 2011. Two years later, a demo version of the film currently in development was presented at the Camera Dance Film Festival at Lincoln Center.
In 2015, Arnold Rafael Binkinen, 70, received the 2015 Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Scholarship and is currently completing his eighth book. At the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, the photographer held his first solo exhibition titled 7 8 9 0 1.
Minkkinen's work has been published and exhibited around the world and can be collected at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Addison American Art Gallery in Andover, Massachusetts, the Pompidou Center and Museum of Modern Art in Paris, France, the Elysee Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Creative Photography Center in Arizona, the Museum of Photography in Finland and the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo.
Arno Raphael Minkinen shared the secrets of filming with talented fans in the article "My Way: How to Work Like Me":
"Many of my photos are not taken by accident, and it takes preparation and time to shoot creative scenes. Some of the situations that occurred during filming were related to danger. I don't want anyone to risk themselves like I do.
So I leaned against a high cliff and dived underwater just to achieve the desired effect. I had to overcome many difficulties and show a lot of patience, but the troubles and pains always stayed behind the scenes and no one knew.
Some of my photos may seem simple, but in reality they show the abilities of the human body, although I'm not doing it just for the sake of taking risks. I call my photos self-portraits so that the viewer knows who is depicted in the photo and who made it. ”
I have always felt a lack of maternal love. I want to show the world what I'm inside, how I feel. Maybe that's why I started taking pictures. As a child, I had few friends. That's why I spend a lot of time studying art. Arno says I came to the world of photography by chance. "I was writing an advertising text and at some point a client brought in a camera. I should write about her syllables. When I saw the camera, something changed in my life.
I wrote this advertising slogan: "Everything that happens in your head can happen in the camera." "It turned out to be a good advertising slogan. At the same time, this phrase became my expression as an artist. I love the advertising world and my social circle, but I want something more stable. I took some pictures and sent them to design school. I was immediately rejected. I started thinking about how to become a famous photographer.
The photographs he photographs are of a man's first beliefs about civilization and the natural world, a process of uninterrupted long-term exploration of his spirit, a journey of a lonely human soul, a man's piety and self-redemption.
- When I was young, I looked at pretty girls and sadly thought that no one would love me... But I was lucky in love and I had a beautiful wife. My mom never visited any of my exhibitions. One day she told me that she didn't understand why I often showed myself to the world... Each of us needs to understand what your gift is. Don't let anyone change their mind. Then you will find heaven,"
Honors and awards
Regional grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1991
1993 Knight of the Order of the Lion, Finland, First Class, Grand Prix of the Watermark of the 25th Arles Conference in 1994 Acqua Standard, Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy, 1996
A 2005 Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council
Finnish National Photographic Art Award 2006
2006 Lianzhou International Photography Festival, SAGA Special Jury Award, Guangdong Province, China: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen
2010 Finnish Film Foundation Screenwriters Grant
In 2012, Nancy Donahue awarded the University of Massachusetts Lowell a professorship in the arts
2013 Lucy's Fine Art Achievement Award
2015 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
2015 Photography Education Association Regional Honorary Educator
2017 Pro Finlandia Medal, the highest honor of Finnish art
2019 National Honorary Educator of the Photography Education Society
Minkkinen German Photo Album Award 2019 (Gold)
2020 Finnish Photo Album Awards Honorary Jury Selection (Minkkinen)
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Text: frank
Photo by Arno Raffael Minkkinen
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