At Galeria Wschodnia Raphael Rogiński will present himself from many sides. He will turn into something the Dacians called a polyfigure. Dispensing the efflorescences of his soul to the world, on 8 and 9 June he will tell of the world not only musically but also graphically. Watercolours, gouaches, drawings and short films are here a kind of tracing paper reflecting a history in which the artist is an observer, a part or a creator. Mutants and hermaphrodites live here alongside Holocaust survivors, the beloved Black Sea, bound up with family, breaks through into newly built Warsaw (which the author of the works tours with ghost people), and the animal of Seth meets polar powers.

Macabre art is no stranger to the author. The cosmopolitan surrealism which Rogiński professes in the visual arts, and to which he has clung like a vestal since the age of 10, has more than once got the artist into trouble. Forged in the smithy as an artist since childhood, he decided to give himself over to elusive music. Banished from art schools amid the odours of scandal and indecency, he became a minstrel to delight courtiers, the peoples of the polis and the rabble of this world. Now he returns and combines media in endless wonder at the world. The exhibition, with a concert and a guided tour, will be a unity flowing from itself, like a little shrine of snake-people by a magic spring.

Raphael Rogiński

Guitarist, composer and performer, improviser, cultural animator and researcher of musical folklore. Trained in jazz and classical music, he extended his education with musicology and ethnomusicology. Connected with Jewish culture, he researches its forgotten traditions, translating their meaning into the present. Leader of Shofar and Cukunft, member of the bands Wovoka and Shy Albatross. Artistic director of festivals presenting new Jewish culture – Tikkun, Varshe, Mizrach. He also plays Turkish, Bedouin, African, Sami, Persian, Armenian and other music, performing it with musicians from those places. Among his musical inspirations the musician names the primitive and experimental music of America, blues, the rock of the 50s and 60s, jazz and early Polish music. Initiator of the project "Rogiński gra Bacha" [Rogiński Plays Bach], in which Bach's music is performed on prepared guitars, and of an album of music by Henry Purcell. Twice nominated for the Paszporty Polityki awards, he was also the first Polish artist to be included in the year's round-up of The Wire music magazine.