Kurimanzutto to stage first major John Giorno solo show in Mexico City

Kurimanzutto will present ‘john giorno: life is a killer’ in Mexico City from August 29 to October 10, 2026, marking what the gallery describes as the first major solo show in the city by the American artist, poet and activist John Giorno, who lived from 1936 to 2019. The exhibition is organized around Giorno’s long-standing belief that poetry should move beyond the page and reach audiences through multiple forms.

According to the gallery, the presentation will bring together works on canvas and paper, wall paintings, audio recordings, film and live performances. Giorno’s phrase ‘LIFE IS A KILLER’ runs across the exhibition in different forms, reappearing in paintings, recordings, performance and publications. The show’s framing emphasizes his view that a poem could gain new meaning each time it shifted medium.

The exhibition also traces one of Giorno’s best-known bodies of visual work, the ‘Poem Paintings’, which he began in the late 1980s. Kurimanzutto says examples in the show appear in black and white or in vivid rainbow colors, turning words into graphic compositions. The gallery links these works to Pop art and to exchanges between poetry and visual art in New York, while also noting Giorno’s association with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Andy Warhol.

A selection of silkscreen prints from the late 1960s and early 1970s will also be included. These works are based on newspaper headlines, magazine articles and personal ads, alongside Giorno’s own writing. Two of the works use the artist’s double-column format, which the gallery says invites viewers to read the poems aloud and reflects the importance of voice, rhythm, repetition and layered language in Giorno’s practice.

Performance remains central to the exhibition design. Kurimanzutto says a suspended microphone will hang in the middle of the gallery above a raised platform used as a stage for live acts. Four turntables, developed with artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, will play vinyl records released by Giorno Poetry Systems, the nonprofit Giorno founded in 1965. Visitors will be able to select, handle and play the LPs themselves, with up to four recordings spinning at once.

Among the recordings cited by the gallery are ‘The Dial-A-Poem Poets: Totally Corrupt’ from 1973, ‘Big Ego’ from 1978 and ‘Life Is a Killer’ from 1982. As the records play, voices will layer into what Kurimanzutto describes as an ever-changing soundscape. The exhibition also includes Rirkrit Tiravanija’s ten-hour film ‘untitled 2008 (john giorno reads)’, shown in the gallery’s project room upstairs and filmed over several days at Giorno’s home at 222 Bowery in New York.

The show extends beyond the main gallery through a set of public programs and archival material. Giorno Poetry Systems has invited Abraham Cruzvillegas, who in turn invited La Bruja de Texcoco to perform on September 9 at 222 Bowery. Kurimanzutto also says there will be an ongoing program of readings, performances, workshops and public events in collaboration with artists, poets and performers working in Mexico City, including a poetry translation workshop led by La Americana. The gallery’s bookstore will present an archive of photographs, publications, documents, recordings and ephemera spanning Giorno’s life and practice, drawing on materials related to Dial-A-Poem, GPS, Buddhism, political activism and collaborations.