In 2017, in celebration of poet and artist John Giorno’s eightieth birthday, the New Museum joined twelve other New York art spaces in recognizing his influential work.

“I ♥ John Giorno” is a work of art by Giorno’s husband, the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone, whose sculpture Hell, Yes! adorned the New Museum’s façade at 235 Bowery when the building opened in 2007. “I ♥ John Giorno” was conceived as a festival, with installations in galleries and public spaces and a roster of free public programs. The New Museum presented a mural designed by Scott King in its lobby, an ode to the iconic “I ♥ NY” logo that celebrates Giorno’s life as a New York figure. Visitors could also experience Giorno’s Dial-A-Poem phone project, an influential work of art that anticipated mass media communication and the commercial success of hotlines, in the New Museum lobby. First staged at the Architectural League in 1969, and again at the Museum of Modern Art in 1970, Dial-A-Poem uses phone lines connected to answering machines to allow anyone to call in and listen to prerecorded poems by Joe Brainard, William S. Burroughs, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and many others.

Partner venues for “I ♥ John Giorno” included Artists Space, High Line Art, Howl! Happening, Hunter College Art Galleries, the Kitchen, Red Bull Arts New York, the Rubin Museum of Art, Sky Art, Swiss Institute, White Columns, and 80WSE Gallery.