ZWOLLE.- Museum de Fundatie is presenting Digital by Nature: The Art of Miguel Chevalier, the largest retrospective of the French artist in Europe to date and his first major solo exhibition in the Netherlands. On view through April 4, 2027, the exhibition brings together nearly 120 works spanning more than four decades of experimentation with digital technology.
Chevalier, who was born in Mexico City in 1959 and lives and works in Paris, is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of digital art. His practice explores the meeting point between nature, technology and human perception, often using algorithms to create visual environments that are never quite the same twice.
At the center of the exhibition are four large interactive installations that respond directly to the presence and movement of visitors. Patterns shift, colors change, and digital forms emerge and disappear as people move through the space. The result is an experience in which the audience becomes an active part of the work rather than a passive observer.
Sound is also integral to the exhibition. Composer Jacopo Baboni Schilingi, a longtime collaborator of Chevalier, has created electronic compositions that evolve in relation to the images and movements within the installations, adding another layer of unpredictability.
Nature provides a constant source of inspiration. Flowers, coral, crystals and microscopic underwater organisms appear in transformed digital form, while the exhibition also includes sculpture, robotic drawings, machine-produced embroidery, tapestries, video and objects drawn from natural-science collections.
Chevalier began working with computers in the early 1980s, at a time when the necessary technology was largely inaccessible outside research institutions. He has recalled working at night on machines in a Paris research center after scientists had finished using them for the day. Those early experiments developed into a career devoted to investigating the computer not simply as a tool, but as a creative partner.
In Chevalier's work, the artist sets the parameters — colors, forms and rules — while algorithms introduce variation and chance. This allows the works to keep generating new combinations and visual outcomes, making each encounter distinct.
The exhibition also places Chevalier's work within a broader art-historical context. Among the artists who have influenced him are Marcel Duchamp, Jean Tinguely, Claude Monet, Diego Rivera and video-art pioneer Nam June Paik, as well as early computer artists Vera Molnr and Catherine Ikam.
"What makes Miguel Chevalier's work so special is the way he connects art history and technology, as well as nature and algorithms," said Beatrice von Bormann, director of Museum de Fundatie. "In his installations, these worlds come together, and visitors literally become part of the work."
Digital by Nature originated at Kunsthalle Mnchen, where it was presented from September 2025 through March 2026. The Zwolle edition has been adapted and expanded with additional elements. In December 2026, Chevalier's Pixel Waves will also be projected on the facade of Museum de Fundatie for fourteen days, extending his digital environment into the public realm.
The exhibition forms part of a broader seasonal focus at Museum de Fundatie on the relationship between nature and technology. It is presented alongside DEEP DIVE – Natalia Domnguez Rangel, which transforms the museum's De Wolk space into an underwater-inspired environment of glass, ceramic, metal and sound, and Diana Scherer – Symbio, a nine-meter-high installation in which plant roots grow through specially designed textile structures.
Together, the exhibitions explore how artists are using technology, biology and natural processes to rethink the boundaries between the organic and the artificial.
