John Giorno
1936–
Introduction
John Giorno (December 4, 1936 – October 11, 2019) was an American poet, performance artist, multimedia artist, and activist. A leading figure in the New York avant-garde, he was known for expanding the possibilities of poetry through sound, performance, recordings, telecommunications, and visual art. In 1965, he founded Giorno Poetry Systems, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting poetry through innovative media, and in 1969 launched Dial-A-Poem, a telephone-based poetry project that brought contemporary poetry to a mass audience.
Giorno was associated with artists and writers including Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Brion Gysin. He was Warhol's lover and appeared in the artist's early experimental films, including Sleep (1964). His own work evolved from found-text poetry influenced by Pop art and cut-up techniques into a distinctive style characterized by repetition and spoken-word performance.
A practicing Tibetan Buddhist for nearly five decades, Giorno integrated Buddhist philosophy into his poetry and artistic practice. In 1984, he founded the AIDS Treatment Project through Giorno Poetry Systems to provide direct financial assistance to people living with AIDS. His work has been exhibited internationally and is regarded as influential in the development of performance poetry and multimedia art.
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Accessed July 31, 2026.
Introduction
Poet and painter was the subject of Andy Warhol's 1963 film "Sleep," and created the "Dial-A-Poem" service. He was an intimate of William S. Burroughs, among others in the downtown Manhattan art world from the 1960s onward. As Giorno Poetry Systems he released more than 50 albums of poetry and music, with collaborators such as Laurie Anderson, Gregory Corso, Patti Smith, Karen Finley, Hüsker Dü, Anne Waldman, Richard Hell, Philip Glass, Glenn Branca, and Burroughs.
Roles
Artist, conceptual artist, graphic artist, painter, performance artist, poet, producer
ULAN identifier
500352063
Names
John Giorno
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed July 31, 2026.
