Marco Abrate (Rebor) - The Unknown

The Unknown, 2024, is a unique work belonging to the Peek Behind The Curtain series, a research by Marco Abrate (Rebor) that explores how we inhabit love and human relationships in the digital age.

The research, developed with the support of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel of Shanghai and subsequently explored in the context of the Milan talks with Massimo Recalcati, transforms the exhibition space into a place to be inhabited rather than simply observed.

Within this research, pareidolia becomes a fundamental tool: forms and presences seem to emerge from the material and are completed by the viewer’s gaze. In The Unknown, what initially appears undefined can transform, through perception and memory, into a recognisable presence. The work thus becomes a reflection on the distance between what we see, what we remember and what we desire to recognise in the other.

Marco Abrate (Rebor) is an Italian visual artist, born in 1996, working between Europe and Asia. His practice encompasses sculptural painting, installation and digital languages, focusing on the relationship between image, time and perception.

In 2022, he won First Prize in the Street Art section of the 59th Venice Biennale, with a work exhibited at the Venice Pavilion as part of The Milk of Dreams, subsequently entering the collection of Ca’ Pesaro – Museum of Modern Art in Venice. In 2023, he was selected for the Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist Residency in Shanghai. In 2026, he participated in the Swatch Art Peace Hotel 15th Anniversary Exhibition, as part of the Art Journey project, in collaboration with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice.

His work has received significant attention from the Italian press and television. Vanity Fair Italia described him as “one of the most promising young artists in the Italian art scene.” His work has also been featured by RAI, TGR Rai, TG2, Sky Arte, Treccani, La Stampa, Corriere della Sera and other major Italian publications. Vanity Fair also published a feature dedicated to the Peek Behind The Curtain research.
Marco Abrate’s works are held in international and institutional collections, including Ca’ Pesaro – Museum of Modern Art in Venice, Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, Tai Art Museum in Shanghai, Shanghai Jiao Tong University – ICCI Art Valley, National Portrait Gallery in London and Musée des Confluences in Lyon.

Surface variations, irregularities and material texture are intentional elements of the work and an integral part of the artist’s visual language.