500 years of the Arctic in Exhibition at The New York Public Library

Visual assets: Press kit, with credit information in spreadsheet

MARCH 11, 2024 — The polar ends of the earth have long fascinated explorers, scientists, artists, and the public alike but few make the arduous journey there. Most people who live below its borders only experience the region’s beauty and mystery in narrative, print, or photographic form. The Awe of the Arctic: A Visual History is the first exhibition to survey how the Arctic has been visually depicted from the 16th century to the present. On view March 15 through July 13, 2024, the exhibition is drawn almost exclusively from the Library’s rich collections and focuses on the popular mediated forms—such as narrative textual accounts, prints, photographs, and ephemera—that convey the region’s sublime beauty and mystery as well as its complexity. Ranging from early maps and largely imagined landscapes of the 16th and 17th centuries, to 20th-century photographs documenting the race for the North Pole and contemporary visions of climate change and Indigenous life, the exhibition traces multiple histories of landscape, colonialism, science, and popular culture. 

“The Arctic is so fascinating because it's such an enormous region that crosses many borders and yet, it is foreign for so many of us. The region has a rich history, is incredibly diverse, and has always been in constant flux,” said Elizabeth Cronin, Robert B. Menschel Curator of Photography. “I wanted to do this exhibition on the Arctic so that the people can think about how they imagine the Arctic to be and how that idea compares with the reality of its spaces.” The Awe of the Arctic: A Visual History is organized by Cronin and assisted by Maggie Mustard, Assistant Curator of Photography.

Beginning in The Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery, the exhibition showcases the earliest Western accounts of the Arctic lands, its animals, and its people, and also focuses on the heavily illustrated expedition chronicles and colored lithographic portfolios that commemorated the British expeditions during the Victorian Era. These are followed by a wave of American and European pursuits in the Arctic. 

The exhibition continues in the Celeste Gottesman Bartos and Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos Exhibitions Gallery as it dives deeper into the popular visual culture of the Arctic. The books, stereographs, scrapbooks, photographs, postcards and objects on display emphasize the widespread appeal of arctic disasters and triumphs. The variety of media also shows how print technologies affected our imagination.

Concluding on the third floor, in the Rayner Special Collections Wing and Print Gallery, the exhibition showcases 21st century photographs, prints, and artists’ books portraying the environment of the Arctic today. Works on view are both documentary and conceptual and speak to complex themes of climate change, history, and identity. This section will balance essential visual records of the Arctic’s inherent beauty with more unexpected depictions of the diversity and fragility of its many landscapes. Also featured will be work by artists who are Indigenous to the Arctic regions, from cultures who have been and continue to be impacted by colonialism, globalization, and climate change. This display will provide a crucial bridge from historical Arctic representations to the present as it encourages consideration of what the Arctic is, what it is perceived to be, and what it may become in the future.

The Awe of the Arctic: A Visual History includes items such as: 

• Gerrit de Veer’s Waerachtighe Beschryvinghe from 1598: the first best-selling expedition narrative
• A previously unknown letter describing the Arctic from the surgeon onboard the HMS Erebus 
• Financer George Frederick Norton’s personal photographic album documenting Robert Peary and Matthew Henson’s 1909 expedition
• William Bradford’s The Arctic Regions and select photographs from the artistic expedition
• Rare stereographs from the Austro-Hungarian Arctic expedition of Julius von Payer
• The digital film My First Coin (2022) by Greenlandic artist Julie Edel Hardenberg 
• Conceptual installation by Marcelo Moscheta, A Line in the Arctic #7, 2012, commenting on human attempts to control and understand the natural environment.
• Sakha photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva, Untitled 91 (Chukotka) and Untitled 77 (Dikson) (2019-2020), documenting lost forms of culture and abandoned remnants of community in the Russian north

Visitors can access audio commentary from select Arctic history and literature experts as well as contemporary artists speaking on their work through the Library’s website or Bloomberg Connects, the free culture app.

Exhibited contemporary artists include: Siân Bowen, Ciril Jazbec, Vincent Munier, Sebastian Copeland, Julie Edel Hardenberg, Julian Charrière, Tiina Itkonen, Jacob Aue Sobol, Inuuteq Storch, Ragnar Axelsson, Susanne Neunhoeffer, Terry Adkins, Kiliii Yüyan, Chris McCaw, Saul Becker, Mark Mahaney, Santiago Sierra, Ellie Ga, Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Gregor Sailer, Sarah Anne Johnson, Mette Tronvoll, Marcelo Moscheta, Carleen Sheehan, Emma Stibbon, Christina Seely, Minik Bidstrup, Pauojoungie Saggiak, Ohito Ashoona, Kakulu Saggiaktok, Outi Pieski, Jens Knigge, Witho Worms, Shingo Yoshida, Evgenia Arbugaeva, Charles Xelot, Olaf Otto Becker, Nadav Kander, Jukke Rosing, Marte Lill Somby

Exhibition Catalogue:

A richly illustrated 288-page exhibition catalogue co-published by New York Public Library and Hatje Cantz will accompany the exhibition. Edited by Elizabeth Cronin, it features scholarly essays on early modern Arctic prints by the print curator Madeleine Viljoen, the 19th-century Arctic landscape by the exhibition’s curator Elizabeth Cronin, and a joint essay on the contemporary works by the curator and Maggie Mustard. It also contains 11 object-focused texts by New York Public Library staff members, as well as an extensive bibliography.

Public programs:

• Friday, March 15, 7pm – The Library After Hours: Arctic Edition

• Friday, March 22, 2pm – Solving an Arctic Riddle: with author Ken McGoogan

• Thursday and Friday, April 4-5 – The Arctic Throughout History: Visual and Cultural Conceptions Symposium 

The exhibition is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday and Thursday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Awe of the Arctic will be on view March 15 – July 13, 2024. 

Support for The New York Public Library’s Exhibitions Program has been provided by Celeste Bartos, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos Exhibitions Fund, Jonathan Altman, and Miriam and Ira D. Wallach. 

Additional support is provided by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Carl Jacobs Foundation.

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