Welcome back to the inside of my brain!

And this time it’s all about darkness, beauty, and a very bearded lady.

I have a thing for old paintings - the kind that mix biblical cruelty with unspeakable beauty. You know, the type that makes you wonder why you’re fascinated and a bit disturbed at the same time. Enter Jusepe de Ribera, the Spanish master of shadows and brutality, obsessed with Caravaggio.

First time I noticed him years ago in Madrid, Prado. I stumbled upon his iconic piece: Magdalena Ventura with Her Husband and Son (The Bearded Woman) - yes, you read that right. A monumental woman (sic!) with a beard, magnificent, weird, and totally unbothered. A bold statement about identity and human nature, centuries before anyone started debating it. Painted in 1631, commissioned by the Duke of Alcalá himself, because who wouldn’t want a massive portrait of a bearded woman on their wall?

Ventura was 52 when Ribera painted her with a beard she’d started growing at 37. She was Italian, from Abruzzi, and her beard was probably her main source of income. Honestly, it’s longer and more impressive than her husband’s (in the back) carefully trimmed one. And the fact that she’s just standing there, nursing her kid like it’s the most normal thing in the world? Total statement. Strength, defiance, and “I dare you to look away” energy.

Fast forward to Petit Palais, Paris. I’m back at it - staring at this bearded queen again, feeling like we’re kindred spirits in our shared confusion about what’s considered beautiful. Around her, more Riberas - all soaked in light and shadow, brutality and grace.

One piece that left me completely hypnotized? Venus and Adonis. Painted in 1637, it captures the tragic climax of the myth: Adonis, the breathtakingly beautiful youth loved by Venus, lies dying after a wild boar attack. Venus, all divine agony and fury, reaches out towards him - the drama is pure gold.

He's perfect. Flawless. So delicate and beautiful I couldn’t stop staring. I wanted to reach out, run my fingers over the paint, trace the softness of his skin. But of course, the one thing you can’t do is touch it. Museums, ruining romance since forever.

And then you look away from Adonis, and suddenly you’re surrounded. The saints, the martyrs, the decapitated and the doomed. Saint Sebastian pierced and pale. Saint Bartholomew with his skin peeled like some grotesque fashion statement. The head of John the Baptist served up on a platter. David brandishing Goliath’s severed head like a trophy.

All the stories, all the cruel imagination - details so surrealistic and realistic at the same time, it’s hard to tell if you’re fascinated or horrified. Maybe both. And maybe that’s exactly the point.

And then - the details. Ribeira had a thing for shiny fingernails. I don't know why but I couldn’t stop looking at them.

And the sketches - oh my. There’s one with a man wearing another man on his head. Just like that.

Another one - a pair of ears and a bat, casually existing together. Surreal and bizarre, and I am completely hooked.

So here I am, back in my studio, obsessing over Christian martyrs like they’re the new pop icons. Sainthood, but make it punk.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Ribera. Ténèbres et lumière, Petit Palais Paris, 5.11.2024 - 23.02.2025

Photos: Joanna Gniady

Welcome back to the inside of my brain!

I moved into a new studio and immediately made it dramatic.
The pencils are moody, the light is romantic, and this playlist is the soundtrack to all of it.

Press play and enjoy!

Bisou bisou, Jo

I wasn’t planning to obsess today, but here we are.

Witold Giersz and Neonowa Fraszka (1959) - a mesmerizing animation where city lights don’t just glow, they perform. Jazz-fueled, pulsating, and hypnotic, like a late-night dive into a neon jungle.

Absolutely electric. Absolutely inspiring. If you haven’t seen it yet - fix that immediately!

Bisou bisou, Jo

Direction: Witold Giersz

Screenplay: Zofia Kaiser, Witold Giersz

I wasn’t planning to obsess today, but here we are.

Christmas displays - my guiltiest guilty pleasure. Every time I stand in front of one, I think of Christophe Honoré’s "Dans Paris" - Jonathan (Louis Garrel) wandering through glowing streets, staring at the dreamy Le Bon Marché vitrines. Maybe a little kitschy, maybe a little naive, but undeniably magical. The kind of thing that makes your inner child do backflips.

And then, there’s that scene. Jonathan kisses a stranger in front of a Christmas display.
"C’est chouette," she says.
"Chouette? No one says chouette anymore."
"What should I say?"
"I don’t know… cool, good, hot, kick-ass, the bomb. Or even groovy."

And honestly? That’s exactly how I feel when I stand in front of those twinkling, over-the-top displays on a freezing winter day. Like Paris just kissed me on the cheek. And yeah… it’s très chouette !

Cool, good, hot, kick-ass, the bomb. Or even groovy.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Photos: Joanna Gniady

I wasn’t planning to obsess today, but here we are.

Edward Gorey - legendary illustrator of doom, connoisseur of eerie elegance (a man who famously wore long fur coats over pajamas and tennis shoes), and proof that black humor is the best kind of humor. Dramatic aristocrats, mysterious creatures, and children who really should be more careful. Absolutely iconic.

I’ve been a Gorey enthusiast for ages - his ink work? Perfection. His wit? Razor-sharp. And now, I'm reading "The World of Edward Gorey" by Karen Wilkin & Clifford Ross. Here are, for your viewing pleasure, some pictures taken from that book.

And if you’ve ever been curious about the first glimpse of Gorey’s brilliance - look no further.

Le voilà - "Sausage Train"!*

Bisou bisou, Jo

* "Sausage Train" was taken from "Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey" by Karen Wilkin

I went for art, and it was great. Something modern, something old, Picasso, a pair of jeans. But what really got me? Frank Lloyd Wright’s fever dream of a museum. The Guggenheim doesn’t just show art - it is art. And it doesn’t let you forget it. Curving walls, tilting floors, a hypnotic swirl that had me questioning if I’d accidentally stepped into a giant whirlpool.

Absolute architectural madness. Loved every second.

And just when I thought the Guggenheim experience couldn’t get any wilder, I found out about the Guggenheim Hat. In 1960, legendary milliner Sally Victor looked at this spiraling masterpiece and made an actual, wearable, collapsible hat inspired by the museum!

Would I wear it? Without hesitation. But for now, I did what felt natural - I drew it. And now my brain is spinning faster than the ramps inside: Louvre Hat? Pompidou Hat? Tate Hat? At this rate, I might just launch an entire architectural millinery line. Call me when MoMA wants in.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Photos: Joanna Gniady

I wasn’t planning to obsess today, but here we are.

"Soir Bleu" - Hopper’s wild one-night stand with Parisian decadence, and my eternal favorite. It’s smoky, enigmatic, and filled with the kind of people you’d make terrible decisions with at 3 a.m. in Montmartre.

Big, bold, and drowning in melancholy - so different from the quiet, lonely diners he’s known for. Critics hated it, Hopper hid it for many years, and I worship it. Seeing it in person at the Whitney Museum of American Art had me ecstatic. If only kissing paintings were allowed...

Bisou bisou, Jo

Photos: Joanna Gniady

A rainy pilgrimage to Basquiat in a deserted Brooklyn cemetery: beer in hand, rain in my shoes, and not a soul in sight (except for some very theatrical birds and judgmental squirrels).

We drank, we prayed, we begged Saint Jean-Michel for a creative blessing. Left a little wetter, a little holier, and still waiting for the lightning bolt of genius. Hope he’s in a giving mood!

Bisou bisou, Jo

Photos: Joanna Gniady

Some places are just buildings. Chelsea Hotel? It’s mythology. The stories, the legends, the punk-infused apocrypha - I devoured them all. Inspired by Just Kids, Patti and Robert’s NYC gospel, it was obvious: I had to go.

Of course, it’s not the same. The once-lawless bohemian free-for-all is now... civilized. Gentrified. But I wasn’t looking for a room. I was looking for ghosts.

So, on a chilly NYC morning, coffee in hand, Because the Night in my ears, I climbed to the top floor - where Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe once lived. 12 floors of red brick and history, its grand staircase wrapped in safety nets (oh, the irony), its corridors lined with a glorious mix of bad art, weird art, and the occasional masterpiece. And yet… something lingers.

The ghosts? They never checked out. Maybe they’re still whispering in the air - Dylan’s songs, Ginsberg’s rants, Warhol’s Chelsea Girls playing on an eternal loop. Maybe Sid and Nancy’s fight never really ended.

Chelsea Hotel doesn’t try to be legendary - it just is.

And me? No scandal, no grand exit, not even a stolen hotel pen (amateur move!). Wandering its too-quiet, too-empty, too-gloomy corridors, feeling… something big, probably. Patti once wrote: “We lived as we wished, experiencing joyous misadventures.” I just showed up late - an uninvited guest at a ghost afterparty.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Photos: Joanna Gniady

Some people collect stamps, some collect antique toasters - and it turns out that I collect museums.

And MoMA? That was a missing piece in my collection. Finally made it. Finally checked it off. And yes, it felt like a a grand fête!

MoMA’s treasures? Massive. Legendary. Overwhelming. But let’s not try to cover everything - instead, here are three pieces that stopped me in my tracks.

Picasso’s study for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Before Picasso locked in his final composition, he played around - a lot. This tiny oil sketch shows Demoiselles in a different universe, with two male figures: a sailor and a medical student holding a skull (casual). In the final piece? Gone. Picasso scrapped them so that the women stare straight at us instead. A power move.

Matisse, The Moroccans
Matisse is, as always, my Matisse. But this time, it was a painting I didn’t even know before - The Moroccans. Huge. Hypnotic. A complete revelation. I stood in front of it forever, soaking in its rhythms, its colors, its sheer presence. This one hit differently.

Klimt, The Park - Klimt went full wild mode here. Turns out, he used a cardboard viewfinder to frame his scenes before painting, but this? This feels like nature taking over, unfiltered. A mesmerizing explosion of green (and pink, and blue, and purple, and yellow, oh my!).

And remember - no selfies with paintings!

Bisou bisou, Jo

Photos: Joanna Gniady

Walking NYC streets, making a soundtrack for this accidental love affair. Paris, don’t be jealous.

Music for now, confessions later 🙂

Bisou bisou, Jo

A few days ago, I was writing about Basquiat - now I’ve seen his leg!

Well, a leg. More precisely, a Polaroid of his leg, shot by none other than Andy Warhol. Gotta love art history’s obsession with body parts.

The Neue Nationalgalerie Warhol's exhibition in Berlin was pure inspiration. Can’t show you much (censorship, darling!), but after being bombarded with the same Basquiat pieces on repeat everywhere, I was mesmerized by his drawings - so simple, yet so sensual. And speaking of sensual… let’s just say there was plenty of nudity I definitely can’t post. Use your imagination.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Andy Warhol
Velvet Rage and Beauty

09.06.2024 to 06.10.2024
Neue Nationalgalerie

Photos: Joanna Gniady

"After the bath we watched television and went to sleep. When I woke up he had already left the loft. He had left me a note that said, I remember it perfectly, 'Venus, morning glory, sweet potato. I have the money and you have the gold. JMB'.

Later I saw those words 'morning glory and sweet potato' in a painting of his, Eroica I, one of his last paintings. On that same painting he had also written 'a man dies' four times".

Nostalgia for a time I never lived. "Widow Basquiat. A Love Story" - beautiful, heartbreaking, and everything in between. Loved it.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Painting source: Artsper Magazine

Spending the day with the one and only Jean Cocteau? Casual. First time seeing so many of his works in one go, too - no big deal.

I remember years ago, watching The Orphic Trilogy and thinking, ‘Wow, this is dangerously beautiful.’ Then came his writings, and eventually his drawings. Now, seeing his pencil strokes up close at Peggy Guggenheim’s Venice pad? It’s like catching up with an old friend - intense, intimate, maybe even a little dramatic.

My eyes? Officially spoiled.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Jean Cocteau: The Juggler’s revenge, Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Venice

Photos: Joanna Gniady

I adore this kind of tiredness and artistic overload that La Biennale d'Arte in Venice can offer. It's always so inspiring, touching, engaging.

This year's theme - Strangers everywhere - not only gave the possibility to discover different ways of thinking and portraying reality but also raised so many things to reflect on and learn from.

Sometimes I'm mostly interested in the technical aspects of works of art, the colors, the mood. Other times I feel an urge to know everything about the artist or the historical and sociological background of the project. And it's so great to feel stimulated, intrigued and educated by the art.

It's really hard to pick just a couple of favorites but I spent a lot of time at the Italian exhibition Due qui/To Hear by Massimo Bartolini. I was fascinated by the whole experience of sound and the meditative movements of Conveyance - a kind of sculpture with rising and falling conical wave.

When it comes to sound, I also think about the very touching Polish exhibition, created by Open Group. Watching people repeat the sounds of war after the refugees, in a karaoke manner, was truly powerful.

The surreal and fragile nature of fruit and household objects in the Japanese pavilion (Compose by Yuko Mohri) made me smile, and sitting inside a giraffe (and feeling like I was in a universe created by Michel Gondry) in the Czech pavilion made me melancholic (The heart of a giraffe in captivity is twelve kilos lighter by Eva Koťátková).

The International Celebration of Blasphemy and The Sacred in the Netherlands pavilion stayed in my mind for a very long time. The sculptures made of cacao were not sweet at all...

The music and ambiance of the French pavilion were dreamy and soothing (although the subject was much more than just creating ambiance). Big bravo to Julien Creuzet for his poetic project Attila cataracte ta source aux pieds des pitons verts finira dans la grande mer gouffre bleu nous nous noyâmes dans les larmes marées de la lune!

As you can see, the list is very long. And long were the Venetian prosecco nights when we discussed all of this.

Bisou bisou, Jo

Photos: Joanna Gniady

Ciao from Italy! New summer playlist is on!

Prosecco in my veins, Biennale art in my heart 🖤

And the cover illustration comes from one beautiful estate in the south of Italy, you know the vibes.

Enjoy the music and have a phantasmagorical summer!

Bisou bisou, Jo