John Giorno SIT IN MY HEART AND SMILE

'SIT IN MY HEART AND SMILE', named after one of John Giorno's (1936-2019) silkscreen prints, will be on display from January 18 to March 15 at the coleção moraes-barbosa in São Paulo. The exhibition will showcase part of Giorno's work in a display that follows the poet's work in print, LP recordings, performance readings, and on media such as the telephone and silkscreen. 

A frequent character to North American avant-garde writers, such as William Burroughs, John Ashbery, Allen Ginsberg, Bernadette Mayer and Anne Waldman, John Giorno was interested in experimenting with words in different media from an early age, exploring not only the poetic effects favored by these incursions but also new ways of interacting with the public. A poet sensitive to the artistic influence of the 1960s and 1970s art scene, especially when it came to pop culture and technological advances that encouraged the encounter between art and science, Giorno dared to investigate the poetic context in a way that was previously unheard of. 

He officially joined a certain New York art group as the protagonist of Andy Warhol's first film Sleep. From then on, his work closely followed the work of artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Les Levine, Vito Acconci, Keith Haring, and John Cage, who were close friends of the poet. We could say that this interaction guided the creation of poems made from collages, phrases found in newspapers, exploring color effects in paintings and silkscreens in a treatment that often also sought to work with poetry as an image. 

Coleção moraes-barbosa is launching the Brazilian version of Dial-A-Poem, one of Giorno's most internationally acclaimed works. Curated by Marcela Vieira, the project brings together readings by 54 Brazilian poets, artists, researchers and writers. The focus of the curation and, consequently, the selection of guests, sought to investigate how contemporary voices from different origins, influences, regions, generations and styles imagine and reinvent a theme dear to Giorno, eroticism – and, by extension, language and sound performance. 

In addition to Giorno's artistic and poetic production, 'SIT IN MY HEART AND SMILE' presents to the Brazilian public a selection of interviews that contextualize the poet's life and work, bringing references to his spiritual practices with Buddhism, and mentioning his committed involvement with the assistance and support of people with AIDS. 

Curator: Marcela Vieira