2 – 23 June 2011
the exhibition will open on Thursday 2 June at 10pm
with a performance by John Giorno
Ballroom of the Bauer hotel, Venice – It

Architettura Sonora will be involved in the John Giorno’s installation brought to Venice by White Noise Gallery. In 1968, John Giorno created Dial-a-Poem innovating the use of the telephone as a tool of mass communication. Dial-a-Poem’s enormous success at reaching a mass audience via millions of calls to the hotline, gave rise to Dial-a-something industry; from Dial-a-Joke and Dial Sports to phone sex and 900 numbers. Dial-a-Poem ushered in a new era in telecommunications.
In Star 69: Dial-a-Poem-relics, WhiteNoise brings together both physical elements of Giorno’s Dial-a-Poem actions, including artifacts used during its notorious inclusion in the landmark ‘information’ exhibition at MOMA New york in 1970, and audio recordings of works by Giorno, William Burroughs and Patti Smith recorded for Giorno Poetry Systems.
As an artist and innovator John Giorno has challenged artistic orthodoxy at every turn and his early attempts at ‘sampling’ with synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog and experimental ‘cut-ups’ (a result of time spent with Brian Gysin and William Burroughs) helped break new ground in poetry and performance. his willingness to experiment presents us, the audience, with a cultural origami of sorts: Buddhism, networks and systems, Queer Politics, AIDS activism, non-profit business, art and technology – all have been folded by Giorno into a praxis that revolts against the prevailing nihilistic trend in modernism and Post-modernism. John Giorno is an early practitioner of what the artist Matthew Stone calls, ‘optimism as cultural rebellion’.

www.whitenoise.org
www.bauervenezia.com
Venetian BAUERs collection
download Press Release