Special Screening: Sleep, a Film by Andy Warhol featuring John Giorno

Special Screening, February 27: Sleep, a Film by Andy Warhol featuring John Giorno

As a special event on the occasion of the exhibition JOHN GIORNO: NO NOSTALGIA, the Marciano Art Foundation is proud to present a one night only screening of Andy Warhol’s epic five hour and twenty-one-minute silent film Sleep in conjunction with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Starring a young John Giorno, Warhol’s first foray into the world of filmmaking was made over several nights in the summer and autumn of 1963. The film shows twenty-two close-ups of the poet Giorno, who was briefly Warhol’s lover, as he sleeps.

By documenting a single action durationally with no dramatic narrative, Warhol turned film into something that could be treated like a painting hanging on a wall, or as Giorno himself put it: “the body of a man as a field of light and shadow.” Sleep became a legendary work of experimental cinema and marked the beginning of Warhol’s half decade focus on filmmaking as a central part of his artistic practice.

Sleep will be screened from 5-10:30 p.m. on Friday, February 27, 2026. All other galleries in the Foundation will be open for viewing during these extended hours.

Los Angeles artist Christopher DeLoach created two event-exclusive bumper stickers, each in a limited edition of 250, available to collect as tokens of attending this screening of Sleep here at Marciano Art Foundation.