Beat in Liverpool CENTRE OF THE CREATIVE UNIVERSE: LIVERPOOL AND THE AVANT-GARDE JUERGEN SEUSS GEROLD DOMMERMUTH HANS MAIER Photography

SEUSS, JUERGEN; GEROLD DOMMERMUTH AND HANS MAIER.
Beat in Liverpool.

Frankfurt am Main, Europäische Verlagsanstalt/Europaring, 1965/1966. Cloth-covered boards (hardcover) with pictorial dustjacket (slightly worn to edges but complete), 20,5 x 20,5 cms., (20) pp. text with illustrations, (160) pp. photographic grainy plates photos in black-and-white giving a claer image of youth and Beat scene in Liverpool in the early sixties, including bohemianism, music, pop art. Dutch first edition of this 'sixties'-book published 1966 by Europäische Verlagsanstalt / Europaring. Accompanied by a 7? vinyl record in picture sleeve held by a black cloth band at the back of the book. The single features the Clayton Squares recorded at the Cavern Club on the A-side, and the B-side has The Hideaways recorded at the Sink Club. *Book (apart from d/j), sleve and record in very fine condtion.

CENTRE OF THE CREATIVE UNIVERSE: LIVERPOOL AND THE AVANT-GARDE
20 FEBRUARY – 9 SEPTEMBER 2007

Stewart Bale Double Decker Bus at Edge Lane Depot 1946

To coincide with Liverpool’s 800th anniversary celebrations, this major exhibition investigates how the city has influenced and inspired a diverse range of important post-war artists. Centre of the Creative Universe, which takes its title from a statement by Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, explores how artists have contributed to an external view of Liverpool in people’s imaginations, and reveals, as well as challenges, myths of the creative scene in the city over the past four decades.

In that time Liverpool has emerged as a centre of global pop culture, a source of inspiration for documentary photography practice and politically motivated tendencies, and played host to a series of major avant-garde artists and movements ranging from Pop to Conceptual Art. As a result, Centre of the Creative Universe will include some of the most prominent artists of the last fifty years such as Keith Arnatt, Bernd & Hilla Becher, the Boyle Family, Jeremy Deller, Rineke Dijkstra, Adrian Henri, Candida Höfer, John Latham, Yoko Ono, Martin Parr, Bob and Roberta Smith, Sam Walsh and Tom Wood. The exhibition brings these key figures together in Liverpool, and through the interplay of their works, presents an ambitious history of the visual arts in the city, and explores the city’s status as a work of art in the mind of the artist.

Beat City

In the 1960s a cultural revolution emerged from Liverpool. It was centred upon music and especially the Cavern on Mathew Street, as seen in Daniel Farson’s film Beat City 1963, and the photographs for German magazine Stern by Max Scheler and Astrid Kirchherr.

However, other art forms played an equal part, from fashion to theatre to poetry and the visual arts. Involved in many of these forms was Adrian Henri. Henri staged happenings and poetry events at the Cavern and Hope Hall, wrote poetry and painted pop paintings, such as The Entry of Christ into Liverpool 1962–4.

A key site for artists was Liverpool 8. Among the artists who lived and worked there were Henri, pop artist Sam Walsh, John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe. This postcode came to signify a bohemian spirit as creative people came to visit and stay in the area. One famous visitor was Allen Ginsberg, who in 1965 proclaimed ‘Liverpool is at the present moment the centre of the consciousness of the human universe’.

Less well-known is the visit of German photographer Candida Höfer, who took some of her earliest exhibited images on a trip to experience the vibrant poetry scene in 1968. Höfer later studied with conceptual photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher who themselves visited Liverpool in 1966, capturing the Albert Dock in long-exposure shots.