French artist Yvan Salomone (1957) makes drawings and watercolors of port views, based on an archive of photographs he has taken of ports along the French coast. Since 1991, he executes a watercolor each week.
Eevry week, from October 1993 through July 1994, Salomone sent a watercolor to Witte de With, where it was shown as a special project in the stairwell. Each week brought a new harbor view, including some of the port of Rotterdam.
Pour gouverner ailleurs/Off her course functioned as a prelude to Fish Story (in 1995), the photographic project by American artist Allan Sekula. Both Sekula and Salomone are interested in the representation of maritime space. Their projects pick up the rich but nearly lost tradition of depicting harbors, ships and coastlines, that few contemporary artists are continuing.