Tabor Robak


Tabor Robak is an American artist, working in New Media.

Early life and education

Tabor Robak was born in Portland, Oregon. He graduated with a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2010, after which he moved to Brooklyn, New York.
Early in his career, Robak worked as a graphic designer for companies such as Nike and T-Mobile.

Career and work

Tabor Robak's early works consisted of 3D interactive environments, to be accessed on the artist's website. These pieces, which the artist described as having a "desktop screensaver aesthetic," sought to isolate digital space as a fact, an abstracted, alternate reality. Robak's work explore the visual vocabulary of modern video games, advertising and animated film, to examine societal perceptions of the digital and the real.
Robak has had several solo exhibitions at Team Gallery: Next-Gen Open Beta, Fake Shrimp, Sunflower Seed and Quantaspectra. He has had one solo exhibition at Johan Berggren Gallery: Sunflower Seed.

Critical reception

The New York Observer called the exhibition "one of the major events of the season" both because of the quality of the work and because it was "signaling newfound acceptance by big-league galleries like Team." Roberta Smith reviewed the exhibition in The New York Times, praising Robak's virtuosity, his dazzling visuality, and "his meshing of high and low; digital and labor-intensive; art and advertising."

Artistic process

Tabor Robak employs several programs to create his artworks, including Unity, Adobe After Effects, and Cinema 4D. His early work was primarily looped video. He has used novel technology, including transparent television monitors and miniature Raspberry Pi computers. Since 2016, Robak's output has shifted from looped video to the production of so-called "generative artworks," which create their imagery via dedicated, custom-built computers.

Major commissions and museum collections

In 2017, Robak was commissioned by Microsoft to an artwork for the 40-foot screen on the facade of their flagship store on 5th Avenue. Robak's works have been acquired by a number of major museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Albright-Knox Art Gallery.