The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...
John Giorno, Buddhist, poet and raconteur, has been an advocate for three decades of art's most radical experiments. As "the poet who works as a stockbroker", he was the "protagonist" of Andy Warhol's first film, Sleep. Later he adapted his own poetry to performance and environments, pioneering the use of technology in the arts. Projects like Dial-A-Poem, 1978's Nova Convention, and compilation records and videos on the Giorno Poetry Systems label galvanised creators in a range of media (1987's Smack My Crack was this writers introduction to Diamanda Galas, William Burroughs, and American Hardcore).A rare engagement in political and social issues led to recordings for Radio Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and his AIDS Treatment Project sees his own money disbursed both to charity groups and afflicted individuals. Giorno toured Australia's east coast capitals in 1995: performing in company with Bernard Heidsieck, exhibiting his poem prints. Jim Krank spoke to him on the eve of the opening of his exhibition, Filthy and Anonymous, at Metro Arts, Brisbane.
..Jim Krank You started writing in the early sixties. I read a piece of yours in an old anthology, about being tortured and raped ... .
.John Giorno Yes. I wrote that in 1963 or 1964. In the early sixties-even though drugs and all of that thing had happened in the States-pornography was still untouched. It was still like the 1950s. or the 1930s for that matter. So when I did that work it was with the idea of using a pornographic image (that appeared at the time only in cheap pornography) and transforming it into an art form. That was the intention of "Pornographic Poem··. A few years later the entire culture... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline