Upstream Gallery is proud to present FlatEarth.io, the first solo exhibition of Tabor Robak in the Netherlands. Tabor Robak (1986, USA) lives and works in New York and is known for creating multi-channel video installations and procedurally generated animations that have been exhibited in venues such as the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, the Serpentine Galleries in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. His work is included in numerous public and private collections, including those of The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York.
In this exhibition Robak will show multiple monumental multi-screen installations. The technological interfaces of these screens might look similar to contemporary video games, but in reality they are exponentially more elaborate. Robak has been recognized for his intricate, animated digital works, so detailed and meticulously constructed that they took months to compose. For his virtuoso computer work rendered in excruciating, hyper-real detail, he has been called the Michelangelo of digital art, or, ‘Pixelangelo’. The artist’s virtuoso workmanship should get noticed when approaching his work closely. He said, “I like thinking about the materiality of digital work. That is why I love screens as opposed to projections, because you can get close and see that tiny flickering pixel. I try to draw attention to the physicality of the screen.”
Tabor Robak is the most compelling artist today working with computer-generated imagery (CGI). In the realm of fine art, his type of work has for a long time been ignored. It has usually been relegated to popular films and television, anime blogs, sci-fi and fantasy forums. Like an Italian Renaissance Humanist, Robak raises the craftsmanship of CGI to the standing of a more intellectual liberal art. He is one of the first to critically look at the possibility of CGI, about which he has said, “I want to be generous to the viewer. Sometimes that requires a deliberately excessive aesthetic: opalescent, sparkling and abundant. I want my work to touch the viewer, like an advertisement, but hopefully with a critical edge.”