Nicola L. is not built for 2024. The Moroccan-born French artist (1932-2018) used her art to push a utopian, subversive agenda that sits pretty awkwardly with progressive modern politics. A film here comes with a warning that it was made back when attitudes towards cultural appropriation were different, the main installation comes with an apology that it’s not wheelchair accessible, and all the radical ideas here have been moved on from.
But it’s still a lot of fun. She made furry suits that multiple people could wear at once to become one giant collective body (as did Lygia Clark, currently on show at Whitechapel Gallery), banners that double as masks for 11 faces emblazoned with the words ‘same skin for everybody’; there are jumpsuits to allow you to become the sky or the sun. It’s radical politics in the form of pyjamas.
She got into film eventually, making an awesome video of hardcore punk legends Bad Brains tearing CBGBs to shreds in 1980. But her best work flirts with design, sculptures that double as furniture: chests of drawers shaped like women’s bodies, an iron shaped like a knob, a lamp that looks like luscious red lips. It's a sneering, clever use of design to kick back against misogyny.
It’s not all great, and it hasn’t all aged particularly well, but it’s full of joy, anger, resistance, noise and loads of pyjamas.
