oslo Negativ – Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
Arno Rafael Minkkinen
10 – 25 October 2026
This October, Oslo Negativ [ON] returns to Nasjonalgalleriet for its sixth edition. As a longstanding participant and supporter of ON, one of Scandinavia’s most significant photography festivals, WILLAS contemporary has previously presented works by some of the medium’s most renowned artists at the festival, including Nick Brandt and Roger Ballen (2021), Helene Schmitz (2022), and Anton Corbijn (2025). This year, the gallery is proud to present the works of Finnish‑American artist Arno Rafael Minkkinen (b. 1945).
Even those unfamiliar with his name will recognize his photographs. Since 1969, Minkkinen has photographed his own body within landscapes—not as conventional portraiture, but as an ongoing inquiry into whether a body and a place can hold the same form. Spanning five decades, four continents, thirty countries and 33 U.S. states, his images seamlessly blend the human figure with natural elements, making each photograph a visual puzzle. Working almost always in solitude, without assistants or post-production manipulation, he transforms the specific—a naked body in nature—into something universal. By imposing self-defined limitations, he seeks to keep everything the same, and yet every photograph is always different.
From his early works in the 1970s to the present, Minkkinen’s images preserve a consistent sense of timelessness and aesthetic signature. While conceptually linked to artists such as Bruce Nauman, Lucas Samaras, and Cindy Sherman, Minkkinen remains categorically singular. His practice constitutes one of the longest, if not the longest, non-stop bodies of self-portrait work in the history of photography. It has helped shape how generations of photographers approach the relationship between body and landscape. This year’s festival theme, Passion, aptly frames an artist who has sustained a single preoccupation for more than five decades.
The exhibition at Nasjonalgalleriet brings together work made between 1970 and 2025. It is neither chronological nor a retrospective; instead, it traces a single, sustained inquiry into vulnerability, solitude, and the point at which the self gives way to landscape. A highlight is the portfolio White Underpants, comprising 20 silver-gelatin prints made in the 1970s, presented here as vintage prints.
Minkkinen’s path to photography was indirect. He studied English Literature at Wagner College and worked as a copywriter on Madison Avenue before turning to photography under Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he earned his MFA. A Guggenheim Fellow, he has paired his artistic practice with a long academic career and now holds positions as Emeritus Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Docent at Aalto University in Helsinki. In 2025, he received the Académie des beaux-arts Photography Award – William Klein, and in 2026–2027 he was named Finlandia Foundation National Artist of the Year.
Minkkinen’s works are held in over 80 prominent museum and institutional collections worldwide, including the Musée d’Art Moderne and Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Musée de l’Élysée (Lausanne), The Museum of Modern Art (New York), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Center for Creative Photography (Tucson), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), High Museum of Art (Atlanta), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Moderna Museet (Stockholm), the Museum of Modern Art (Espoo), and the Finnish National Gallery (Helsinki). Recent solo exhibitions have been held at contemporary art museums in Lima, Zagreb, St. Petersburg, alongside 50-year retrospectives at Fotografiska (Stockholm and Tallinn), Munich’s Kunstfoyer, La Patinoire Royale (Brussels).
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Opening hours
October 10-11 – 11:00-18:00
October 16 – 14:00-18:00
October 17-18 – 11:00-18:00
October 23 – 14:00 - 18:00
October 24-25 – 11:00-18:00
And by appointment
Location: Nasjonalgalleriet, Universitetsgata 13, 0164 Oslo