Free phone number +33( 0) 800 106 106* from 19th October 2015 to 10th January 2016
 

As part of Ugo Rondinone’s I Love John Giorno show, Palais de Tokyo, in partnership with Orange, is providing the chance to relive Dial-A-Poem (1968), the cult piece by John Giorno, which provides the possibility to listen to poems, sound pieces, songs and historic speeches on the phone, by dialling the free phone number +33( 0) 800 106 106* during the entire lifespan of the exhibition from 19th October 2015 to 10th January 2016.

The origins of the piece in the 1960s

In the early 1960s, John Giorno realized that reading a book in an armchair was now a 100 years out of date, while traditional public readings with mikes were inaudible. He wanted to turn poetry into a virus which could be transmitted to as many people as possible. So it was that Giorno created Dial-A-Poem in 1968, thus anticipating mass communication technologies and the rise of hotlines. He invited hundreds of artists to record their voices, mingling the poetry of John Ashbery, the verve of the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, the pop of Deborah Harry, the minimal music of Philip Glass and the recipe for a Molotov Cocktail. After a trial run organised by the Architectural League, New York (1968), Giorno’s poetry service set off a scandal and saturated the switchboard during the “Information” show at the MoMA (1970), quickly exceeding a million calls.

The piece has been updated for Palais de Tokyo show with voices of French artists.

As part of Ugo Rondinone’s I Love John Giorno show, the original version, supplemented with French voices, will be available on the phone, thus retracing a century of sound poetry, from 1915 to now. You can thus discover the original voices that have marked art history, cultural life, and social movements, from the abolition of the death penalty, to women’s rights… The randomly played pieces reveal the diversity of registers proposed by Giorno, from Antonin Artaud to Louise Bourgeois, Serge Gainsbourg, Simone de Beauvoir, Bernard Heidsieck, Brigitte Fontaine or else Eric Duyckaerts… This updating has been conceived by Florence Ostende and Mélissa Hiebler, with the complicity of John Giorno. The original and French versions of Dial-A-Poem bring together 135 artists, poets, singers, performers and politicians, pouring their voices into the comfortable intimacy of an earpiece. From 19th October 2015 to 10th January 2016, the free phone number +33( 0) 800 106 106* will provide the chance to discover an extraordinary panorama of voices and sounds, faithful to Giorno’s broader definition of poetry.

*Free service and calls from numbers in France