A Friend's Portrait

Arto Revonkorpi's exhibition consists of 48 color photographs taken in natural settings without staging. Over the course of a year, Revonkorpi photographed his own shadow against various and differently colored backgrounds - the photographs reveal that shadows are the same color regardless of the background. The exhibition's theme and dramatic arc are structured by Pentti Holapa's (1927-2017) novel of the same name, "A Friend's Portrait", which won the Finlandia Prize in 1998. Individual photographic works are titled with quotations from the book (pp. 6-7).

The exhibition also includes an audio work that can be listened to on a personal smartphone with headphones while viewing the images. In the audio, friends who have moved to Finland from other countries read the same passage from Holapa's book in Finnish: Kristina from Ukraine, Austrian Flurina, Øyvind who moved from Norway, and Paul, a Finnish citizen of Nigerian origin.

Photographer ARTO REVONKORPI (born 1953) is a Jyväskylä-based photographer and special education teacher who has held solo exhibitions since 2006 and participated in numerous group exhibitions. He has published photographs in professional journals, designed album covers and posters, and served as curator for photography exhibitions. The audio work for the exhibition was produced by Arto's eldest son VALTTERI REVONKORPI (born 1977) based on recordings. The exhibition was curated by Kokkola-based PETER JOHNSON, Arto's longtime friend since their student days in the 1980s.

Organizer: Jyväskylä City Library - [email protected] - 0145664123