Artists have always used the means of their time," Miguel Chevalier explained in a recent interview with German magazine Sonntagsblatt. "I try to correspond to my time with today's tools". The French artist, a pioneer of digital art since the 1980s, has consistently used the computer as a creative partner rather than a simple tool. Now, Munich’s Kunsthalle München presents his largest European solo exhibition to date, offering a deep dive into his four-decade career.
The exhibition, titled "Digital by Nature," still runs until 1 March 2026 and gathers around 120 works from every phase of Chevalier's career and invites visitors to navigate interactive rooms where their movements alter the visual landscape. In these generative installations, complex algorithms continuously create new images, ensuring no two moments are the same. The artist's work bridges the gap between the virtual and the physical; algorithms find form as sculptures and drawings realised through 3D printing and robotics.
The exhibition also features interactive elements like 'In Vitro Pixel Flowers'. Here, visitors can design their own virtual flowers, either online or within the gallery. These individual creations then bloom together in a collective digital greenhouse, joining a unique virtual garden that grows with every participant's contribution.
Chevalier’s art remains in constant dialogue with art history and the natural world. He uses Artificial Intelligence not as a replacement for creativity, but as a collaborator that enriches his process. He inputs the AI with precise prompts, and it generates motifs which he then refines, a method he compares to the way old masters worked with assistants in their workshops. To further ground the digital in the real, the exhibition features natural history objects, such as intricate crystals and images of underwater life, which enter a dialogue with his technological creations.
