Digital by Nature: The Art of Miguel Chevalier
Digital by Nature: The Art of Miguel Chevalier at Kunsthalle München presents the artist’s largest solo exhibition in Europe to date, curated by Franziska Stöhr. The exhibition surveys Miguel Chevalier’s practice from the early 1980s to the present, tracing his sustained engagement with digital technologies as both tools and subjects of artistic inquiry.
Born in 1959 in Mexico City and based in Paris, Chevalier has worked with computers as a creative medium for more than four decades. The exhibition brings together approximately 120 works that reflect the evolution of his approach, from early experiments with pixels, binary code, and algorithmic systems to recent projects that explore the intersections of digital and analog processes, technology and nature, and human interaction with computational environments.
The presentation includes a wide range of media and formats, such as 3D printed sculptures produced in ceramic and recycled plastic, robot-generated drawings, machine-produced embroidery and tapestries, and video works created using artificial intelligence. Large-scale generative and interactive installations form a central component of the exhibition. In these works, algorithmic systems continuously generate visual compositions that respond to visitors’ movements, establishing a reciprocal relationship between human presence and machine-driven processes. These installations are accompanied by sound compositions by Jacopo Baboni Schilingi, which further structure the spatial and sensory experience.
The Origin of the World, Miguel Chevalier Generative and interactive installation Music: Jacopo Baboni Schilingi Software: Cyrille Henry, Antoine Villeret Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
visualizing Interaction, Growth, and Transformation
Two works were developed specifically for Kunsthalle München. Complex Meshes Robot Drawings is a performative installation in which a robot produces drawings based on visual motifs from Chevalier’s interactive series Complex Meshes. The artist defines the parameters by selecting the paper and drawing tools, while the robot executes the marks. Originally designed for industrial repetition, the robotic system is reprogrammed to produce variable, gesture-like drawings that foreground the translation between programmed movement and hand-drawn expression.
The second new work, In Vitro Pixel Flowers, expands Chevalier’s ongoing exploration of digital botanical systems. The installation presents his largest virtual herbarium to date, allowing visitors to generate plant forms through an online interface and observe their development within a greenhouse-like environment. The digitally generated plants emerge, evolve, and disappear in continuous cycles, forming a shared, participatory landscape that visualizes processes of growth, variation, and renewal.
Across its diverse works, Digital by Nature positions digital technology not only as a means of production but as a framework for examining systems, transformation, and interaction. The exhibition emphasizes Chevalier’s long-term investigation into how computational tools can shape visual form, spatial experience, and collective participation within contemporary art contexts.
The Origin of the World, Miguel Chevalier Generative and interactive installation Music: Jacopo Baboni Schilingi Software: Cyrille Henry, Antoine Villeret Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
Complex Meshes, Miguel Chevalier Generative and interactive installation Music: Jacopo Baboni Schilingi Software: Cyrille Henry, Antoine Villeret Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
Complex Meshes, Miguel Chevalier Generative and interactive installation Music: Jacopo Baboni Schilingi Software: Cyrille Henry, Antoine Villeret Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
Complex Meshes Robot Drawings, Miguel Chevalier, 2025 Generative robot performance Industrial robot, felt-tip pen, paper Software: Ludovic Mallegol
The Eye of the Machine, Miguel Chevalier Generative and interactive installation Software : Claude Micheli Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
In Vitro Pixel Flowers, Miguel Chevalier, 2025 Participative artwork Software : Samuel Twidale Website : Ollie Smith – Interface : Elise Michel https://pixel-flowers.net
In Vitro Pixel Flowers, Miguel Chevalier, 2025 Generative artwork projected in a greenhouse Software : Samuel Twidale Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
Fractal Flowers, Miguel Chevalier 13 virtual-reality artworks on LCD screens Software: Cyrille Henry Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
Euphorbia Alchimica Veritas of Rousseau 1 > 12, Miguel Chevalier, 2025 From the series Fractal Flowers 12 3D-printed sculptures Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
Meta-Nature AI, Miguel Chevalier Generative installation Music: Jacopo Baboni Schilingi Software: Claude Micheli Credit photos: Nicolas Gaudelet
Brain Corals Stratigraphy, Miguel Chevalier, 2024 3D print sculptures, ceramic and recycled plastic Credit photos: Thomas Granovsky
project info:
name: DIGITAL BY NATURE – The Art of Miguel Chevalier Kunsthalle München / Munich
artist: Miguel Chevalier | @miguel_chevalier
location: Munich, Germany
museum: Kunsthalle München / Munich | @kunsthallemuc
dates: September 12th, 2025 – March 1st, 2026
curator: Franziska Stöhr
curatorial assistant: Jasmin Gierling
music: Jacopo Baboni Schilingi
director: Roger Diederen
exhibition production: Voxels Productions
exhibition design: Martin Kinzlmaier
photographer/videographer: Thomas Granovsky
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edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom
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