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  • On view from 2 December to 2 March, The Window presents Inhale/Exhale (2021) by French artist Noémie Goudal.  Grounded in science, the work examines the Earth as a site in perpetual flux. A serene marshland lake is disrupted by large-scale backdrops that rise from the water—each printed with jungle motifs drawn from Goudal’s archive. These backdrops—simultaneously familiar and uncanny—evoke glitch culture, where imperfections and digital corruptions reveal the constructed nature of images. Transforming before the viewers’ eyes, the scene prompts them to consider the boundaries between the natural and the technological.

     

    Inhale/Exhale is rooted in research about the last Ice Age and the speculative paths humans took across the then-frozen Bering Sea. The artwork collapses geological epochs, ancient climates, and anthropology into a single frame to meditate on the passage of time.

     

    On view 24 hours a day at the Time & Life building on Bruton Street, The Window is a site-specific public art initiative by CHANEL Culture Fund that provides access to cutting-edge artworks by artists exploring the breadth of today’s digital technologies. Goudal’s Inhale/Exhale follows presentations by Refik Anadol, LuYang, Sarah Meyohas, Universal Everything, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Cao Fei, Petra Cortright, Jacolby Satterwhite, CrossLucid, Cecilia Bengolea, and, most recently, Shahzia Sikander.

    Goudal is celebrated for her ambitiously staged, illusionistic installations that explore natural environments through an expansive approach to photography, film, and performance. Her practice is grounded in exacting research at the intersection of ecology and history of Earth sciences to challenge the limitations to theoretical conceptions of the natural world. Goudal describes her work as a fascination with the construction of images – exploring what can exist within them – positioning her art at the boundary between fiction and reality. In Inhale/Exhale, this approach is amplified through the lens of digital mediation and glitch aesthetics, transforming complex concepts into immersive sensory experiences where the imperfections of technology illuminate the instability of nature itself.

    Goudal (b. 1984, Paris, France) has exhibited extensively at leading international institutions, including Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Les Rencontres d’Arles, France; The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki; and The Photographers’ Gallery, London. The launch of this display coincides with a large-scale commission The Story of Fixity with Artangel at Borough Yards (London, UK) , on view until 21 December 2025. She has also participated in significant group exhibitions and biennials, including the Venice Theatre Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Melbourne Photo Biennale, Nasher Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Goudal was shortlisted for the 2024 Prix Marcel Duchamp.