The Arctic was part of our imagined world long before it became part of our actual world. People had ideas about the North Pole, about the wilderness of ice masses, before there were any eyewitnesses to report on them from experience. The less people knew, the more marvellous the images of the unknown land became – if you had not seen it, you could dream it up yourself.
ARCTIC is about these dreams. Some of the dreams remained fantastic stories; others became real – real, that is, for the men who went there. First the dream was the Northwest Passage, which offered a route to China over the top of the globe. Then it was the North Pole itself – who would get there first?
ARCTIC is about these journeys – those in the minds of the dreamers and those in reality. The expeditions drew their impetus from a variety of motives ranging from the trade interests and territorial policies of empires to romantic longings and the pursuit of knowledge, experience and great achievements by individualistic adventurers. At times the motives coincided, and an entire society could be seized by the ‘white fever’ – the urge to go north.
ARCTIC is divided into seven sections. The first section The Sublime shows visual examples of the mixture of terror and delight with which artists cultivated the vast landscape. Under the heading Observations, we meet both scientists and visual artists who give us knowledge of the Arctic region based on investigations and observations. The third section of the exhibition The wide world features artists’ conceptions of the unique and special place that is the Arctic, while Destruction and Mythologies take us into the heroes’ world. Finally, the sixth and seventh sections Voices and Faces and Conquest are about people: those who were there and those who wanted to be there. As key events of this story we learn of six of the most significant expeditions, each with its protagonist: Sir John Franklin, Fridtjof Nansen, Salomon Andrée, Frederick Cook, Robert Peary and Knud Rasmussen.
ARCTIC is an exhibition that blends cultural and historical material with art, including a significant amount of contemporary art. It belongs at a museum like Louisiana mainly because of our belief that, by reflecting art and cultural history in each other, we can reveal aspects of both that would otherwise remain invisible. Our culture is full of ideas, conscious and unconscious – and artistic images are deeply interwoven with the reality from which they arise.
The Arctic – as everyone knows – is a huge challenge for the future of humanity, for our civilization. The Arctic today is much more a part of the real world than of the world of imagination. It is important to know the stories about this place, which is now undergoing a transformation. The knowledge focuses our view of what is happening now – and that is one of the museum’s most important tasks. If the North Pole melts, we will have both a new world and new ideas.
FRIDTJOF NANSEN’S ADVENTURE CULMINATED IN A LEGENDARY FINAL SCENE. One day, after wandering around on the ice for a year and a half with his assistant, Hjalmar Johansen, and now on the brink of disaster, Nansen heard the baying of dogs. He went around an iceberg and suddenly saw a man standing before him. Nansen tipped his hat and said, “How do you do?” Fredrick Jackson, a polar explorer himself, answered, as any gentleman would, “How do you do?” and continued, “Aren’t you Nansen?” “Yes, I am Nansen.”
Nansen was a hero. Talented, intelligent, with a scientific background and great ambition, photogenic, with great charisma and integrity. His technological inspiration came from Norwegian skiing culture, and the rest he learned from the locals. Nansen, who had a rational, innovative temperament, put his ear to the ground and listened. But he was also a romantic adventurer who was captivated by the dream.
Nansen’s key stratagem was brilliant. He assumed that the ice had to drift from east to west across the North Pole, so he let his ship, the Fram, become icebound – it was built for that. Everything succeeded – and yet not quite. The Fram froze in the ice and drifted, but not far enough to the north, so Nansen decided to get off and continue on foot. He got farther north than anyone had before, but he never reached the Pole. He did however return home, as a scientist with many observations and a wealth of fascinating photographs portraying “man facing nature” in the best Romantic style: gazing, dreaming, evaluating, using all his intellect to get through the ice on which he remained the great authority for the rest of his life.