John Giorno, RIP

[dirac]

John Giorno of "Dial-A-Poem" has died at age 82.

Quote

In 1963, the artist Wynn Chamberlain threw a 27th birthday party for Mr. Giorno in the building that became renowned later as a remarkably comprehensive snapshot of the emerging art scene at the time: attendees included Warhol and Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Frank O’Hara, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Frank Stella, Barbara Rose, Roy Lichtenstein, John Ashbery, Merce Cunningham and John Cage.

“They didn’t really know me,” he told Mr. Obrist. “It was billed as a Pop birthday party for a young poet. By the late ’60s, everybody became very famous and nobody went to anybody’s party anymore. It was over.”