The Port, a Pure and Authentic Animal

Cristiana Solinas incontra Raymond Verdaguer

The call with Raymond begins in Paris, one of the stops along his journey as a cosmopolitan artist. He comes from Terranova, his summer retreat, where he works on woodcuts in a small fishing village, among the boats and the island’s little harbour. Terranova, New York - where Ray lived and pursued part of his career as an illustrator for publications such as The New York Times - Paris, and now Genoa.

This will be a return to Genoa and to Casa Luzzati, where he first arrived thanks to Sergio Noberini’s intuition, who immediately recognised his artistic depth. He had spotted Raymond drawing in Piazza Matteotti and promptly invited him to his home for a bowl of minestrone.

From that moment began a shared artistic journey, with Casa Luzzati becoming both a starting point and a kind of residency, made possible by the presence of a printing press where Raymond can work and print freely. And so the ships, bollards, ropes and shipwrights, the cranes and warehouses of the Port of Genoa come to life and are captured in black and white.

Raymond, how did your project on the Port of Genoa come about?
Through observation, and a desire to understand how this “city within a city” works. I wanted to tell the story of the life unfolding inside the port: skilled work, mechanical equipment and industrial architecture. The port is pure and authentic, and being given permission to experience it at such close quarters was a privilege. You cannot see life from a distance, and I was able to explore everything within this “animal” without interference.

And what did you discover?
First and foremost, the essence of the experience. A blend of human truth and essential beauty, made up of craftsmen working with extraordinary expertise, people with the specialised skills required by the port, all moving together within this microcosm, separate from the rest of the city, yet so essential to Genoa.

Indeed, entering the port means passing through gates that are more than just symbolic.
That’s true. The port often remains unknown to many Genoese people, and one of the aims of my project is to reveal this enormous secret to the city’s own inhabitants: its very soul.

And the word “secret”, pronounced almost as it would be in French, English or Spanish, hints at another distinctive feature of the port that struck you: its multicultural nature.
The workers and craftsmen along the quays come from all over the world and work side by side among fishing boats and yachts. The contrast is often striking, and I want to tell that story too.

In your engravings, as you move through the port and among the ships, glimpses of the city’s skyline also emerge.
It’s an aesthetic that fascinates me: so many layers rising from the sea, connected yet separate. Even when I draw cruise ships, I like to portray them as buildings on the water, constructed alongside the city’s concrete buildings.

Now you will be returning to Genoa, and I imagine you will want to continue your project.
The project will continue. Last year, I was observing a platform that, almost like an “octopus”, was cleaning the seabed, extracting and clearing debris through its mechanical intelligence. For me, being able to enter the very bowels of the Port of Genoa was a dream: an ancestral dimension, something akin to poetry.

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