experimental realism, incantatory and repetitive yet at the same time lyrical. Giorno celebrated queer sexuality from the 1964 "Pornographic Poem", through his psychedelic evocations of gay New York City nightlife in the 1970s, to more recent poems such as "Just Say No To Family Values". He founded an AIDS charity, the AIDS Treatment Project in 1984, which continues to give direct financial and other support to individuals with AIDS to the present day. In addition to his collaborations with Burroughs, Giorno produced 55 LPs, tapes, videos and books. He performed at poetry festivals and events, notably in Europe where he was an active participant in the sound poetry scene for several decades. Giorno lived at 255 East 74th Street, when a small carriage house was located on the property. He later lived and worked from three lofts in a building in the Bowery neighborhood on the Lower East Side. In 2007 he appeared in Nine Poems in Basilicata, a film directed by Antonello Faretta based on his poems and his performances. In addition to his solo performances in live poetry shows, since 2005 he had collaborated in some music-poetry shows with Spanish rock singer and composer Javier Colis. The first career-spanning collection of Giorno's poems, Subduing Demons in America: Selected Poems 1962–2007, edited by Marcus Boon, was published by Soft Skull in 2008. In 2010, Giorno had his first one-person gallery show in New York City, entitled Black Paintings and Drawings, at the Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, wherein he exhibited works that chronicled the evolution of the poem painting. The first Poem Prints were part of the Dial-A-Poem installation in the 1970 exhibition Information at the Museum of Modern Art. Connecting words and images, the poet uses the materiality of the written word to confront audiences with poetry in different contexts. In 2011, he starred in one of two versions for the music video to R.E.M.'s final single "We All Go Back to Where We Belong". Death Giorno died of a heart attack at age 82 on October 11, 2019, at his home in Lower Manhattan. At the time of his death, he was married to Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone. References Further reading José Esteban Muñoz, "Ghosts of Public Sex. Utopian Longings, Queer Memories", in Policing Public Sex. Queer Politics and the Future of Gay Activism, Boston, South End Press, 1996, , pp. 355–372. External links Archivio Conz John Giorno Foundation