The Harbor

The place of longing on a sea voyage is the harbor. It forms the transition zone that guides the traveler from solid ground to swaying ground or, conversely, offers him solid footing again. For Socratis Socratous, in his installation “Thank God I'm getting on a boat”, made of seven bollards representing the seven seas, the harbor marks an undefinable destination that has become synonymous with survival and, ultimately, happiness for hundreds of thousands of refugees over the last few years: “A safe harbor can sometimes be all the instruction anyone needs.”

Thus, a special mood of light characterizes the harbors in the Belvedere. Whether these are the warmer southern Mediterranean ensembles like those of Fiume (Rijeka in Croatia), Ragusa and Lussin (Croatian island of Lošinj), the earth-colored ‘open tidal harbors’ of western Europe––Whitby, where the ships of Britain’s most important navigator James Cook (1728–1779) were once built, Dieppe and Nieuport (Nieuwpoort in West Flanders)––or the cooler facilities of the northern marginal seas and inland seas––Lübeck, Stettin, and Stockholm. Since it is nearly impossible to present a harbor in toto, the picture windows tend to show excerpts; also some surprising perspectives: Gustav Kurt Beck shows us his “Harbor in the South” as a chaotic-abstract ground plan, Joseph Jung depicts “Stockholm” as a panorama on the river, and Kurt Moldovan portrays the “Hamburg Harbor” from the curved fisheye perspective.

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