A groundbreaking exhibition showcasing the future of computer-generated art has opened at Kunsthalle München, featuring the largest solo show in Europe by pioneering digital artist Miguel Chevalier. The exhibition "Digital by Nature: The Art of Miguel Chevalier" presents an immersive experience that captivates visitors with spectacular visual effects, demonstrating the computer's potential as a creative medium through algorithms and artificial intelligence.
For Miguel Chevalier, traditional artistic tools like brushes and palettes represent techniques from a bygone era. His first painting instrument was the Amiga 1000 personal computer, an expensive investment for the young artist who also purchased a scanner, printer, and video camera. This marked the beginning of a new era in digital art nearly 40 years ago. While technology has since evolved with numerous drawing programs facilitating human-machine interaction, many art enthusiasts remain skeptical of this innovative medium.
Born in Mexico in 1959 and now living in Paris, Chevalier was overwhelmed by colors and forms during his childhood while admiring the works of muralist Diego Rivera. During his studies at prestigious Parisian art schools, he experimented with technology, working on computers after midnight at a scientific computing center. However, his breakthrough into computer art came during a stay in New York in the early 1980s, where he encountered his first simple drawing programs.
Chevalier describes himself as a "digital impressionist" and sees his work as a dialogical exchange with machines. "Artificial intelligence doesn't replace the artist; it transforms the creative process," he explains his working method. He frequently draws inspiration from his painting roots, citing Claude Monet, Jean Tinguely, and Victor Vasarely as influences. The artist combines analog and digital strategies, not leaving everything to technology but maintaining creative control over the process.
The Munich exhibition overwhelms visitors with optical effects, creating what can be described as a mesmerizing immersive experience that seduces audiences with increasingly spectacular effects from room to room. Multiple rooms feature moving all-over projections that transform ordinary visitors into participants. As visitors walk across glossy black lacquered floors or make sweeping arm movements, hidden sensors detect their motions and transform the constantly evolving forms on the walls into new configurations. Chance is factored into the experience, and visitors can even control sound interactively, as compositions by musician Jacopo Baboni Schilingi respond with varied tone sequences inspired by Bach's "The Art of Fugue."
Among the 120 works spanning all of Chevalier's creative periods, visitors will find drawings, holograms, and sculptures created with 3D printers. These include magical flowers far from reality, resembling creations from a garden of delights, and objects that grow from the ground like giant folded artworks. These large-format origami pieces may reference the two years the artist spent in Tokyo thanks to a scholarship, where he developed his close relationship with nature and interest in ecological problems, which he now merges in his universes of technology, nature, and art.
The virtual botanical greenhouse at the end of the exhibition route awaits its planting, as interested visitors can generate their own flowers in a participatory computer room, which are then projected onto the walls. This interactive element demonstrates Chevalier's commitment to making digital art accessible and engaging for all audiences.
The exhibition runs until March 1, 2026, at Kunsthalle München, located at Theatinerstraße 8, open daily from 10 AM to 8 PM. A catalog is available from Hirmer Verlag. Having achieved worldwide recognition with major exhibitions and outdoor projects that transform public spaces into psychedelic color experiences, Chevalier continues to push the boundaries of what digital art can accomplish in bridging the gap between technology and traditional artistic expression.
