Francois Auguste Biard – Magdalena Bay (1840)

Louisiana poster with the work, Magdalena Bay (1840), by Francois Auguste Biard (1799-1882). The poster is from Louisiana's exhibition, Arctic, in 2013. The exhibition was a depiction and staging of the adventurous, cultural and artistic attraction that the Arctic regions in general, and the North Pole in particular, have and have had on people through generations.

The fascination of the Arctic, of the North Pole, is full of highly dramatic and tragic expedition stories, not infrequently resulting in death for those involved. It has inspired both poets and visual artists to more or less imaginative doomsday visions and utopias and still does so to a large extent.

Arctic became a 'cross-over' exhibition about the ways in which people with very different backgrounds translate ideas, imaginations, dreams and visions of the unknown, and it includes both classic romantic images and contemporary art, authentic expedition photos and scientific objects, literature and sound.

Contemporary art played a significant role in the exhibition. Where romanticism thematized the unknown, desolate and terrifying landscape, contemporary artists see a markedly different landscape, fully explored and defeated and even in drastic change or meltdown.