Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant-garde

Liverpool is a place of myths – both as generated by its inventive inhabitants and as envisaged from afar. As infamous Liverpudlian raconteur George Melly points out, the city is ‘aware of its own myth and eager to project it.’ Centre of the Creative Universe presents Liverpool as a world city with an undying capacity to inspire imaginations – from Sefton Park to San Francisco. Lavishly illustrated, this book traces the representation of the city in art, photography, film, music, literature and poetry and presents an insightful and revealing account of art and bohemian life in Liverpool since 1945. The city emerges as an unlikely centre of avant-garde activity attracting internationally-renowned artists as diverse as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bernd and Hilla Becher, the Boyle Family, Yoko Ono, Candida Höfer, John Latham, Tom Wood, Martin Parr, Rineke Dijkstra and Alec Soth.