Biography

Emerging in the mid-1960s, Nicola L. (b. 1932, Mazagan, Morocco; d. 2018, Los Angeles, USA) developed a multidisciplinary practice that playfully merged the principles of art and design. Born in Morocco to French parents, the artist was initially associated with Pop Art and went on to work across five decades, creating interactive sculptures, radical performances, and collage-like paintings, as well as films and plays. Responsive to the counter-cultural movements that originally framed her practice, Nicola L.’s expansive body of work was united through an engagement with feminist politics, and the ideals of equality and collectivity. The artist (born Nicola Leuthe) became particularly known for her witty, anthropomorphic sculptures that fused female bodies and domestic objects, materializing the objectification of women. The artist described her work as ‘an ephemeral monument to freedom’.

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Nicola L.’s interest in art led her to Paris in 1954, where she studied abstract painting at the École des Beaux-Arts, mentored by the painter Jean Souverbie who encouraged her to ‘cut the body up in the same way that light was cutting the live model’. During this period she became friends with the critic Pierre Restany, and met Fred Lanzenberg, whom she married in 1956. Lanzenberg later opened an art gallery in Brussels in 1966, initially collaborating with the influential dealer Ileana Sonnabend on exhibitions of American Pop artists. During her studies, Nicola L. became aware first-hand of the prejudice faced by female artists and stopped using her surname, later adding the initial ‘L’ in the 2000s.

The beginning of the 1960s was a transformative moment for Nicola L. The artist became close to the French New Realist group, which advocated that art should comment on society using existing objects and materials. Instigated by Restany, the movement also included Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Christo and Niki de Saint Phalle. In 1964, now working between Paris and Ibiza, Nicola L. met the conceptual Argentine artist Alberto Greco. Having recently returned from New York, where he had encountered Marcel Duchamp, Greco repeatedly questioned Nicola L.’s pursuit of painting. ‘I burned all of my abstract paintings and made The Screen for Three People: Homage to Alberto Greco’, she later reflected. ‘This marked the beginning of a new and totally different body of work for me, inspired by skin, which Pierre Restany called Pénétrables.’ These hybrid forms consisted of rectangles of stretched canvas into which viewers could insert their arms, legs or heads, becoming literally at one with art. They would often allow for multiple participants, who would appear together as a single organism. One of her most iconic works from Pénétrables, an eleven-person garment titled Red Coat (1969), was first activated in a historic performance at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970, with musicians Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, members of the Neo-concrete movement in Brazil. ‘At the end of the performance we were distributing gloves on which was written “same skin for everybody”, and people started chanting the phrase.’

Although the artist’s work made reference to both male and female bodies, the nude feminine form became a recurring motif, as it was for counterparts in her circle such as Carolee Schneemann, Valie Export, Rosalyn Drexler and Marisol. Terming much of her sculpture ‘functional art’, Nicola L. made objects akin to furniture that were based on the artist tracing real bodies, exaggerating and over-simplifying their contours. In La Femme Commode (1969–2014) lacquered wood cabinets are arranged in the shape of a body, in which eyes, mouths and breasts become drawers. The artist’s 1969 sculpture Little TV Woman: ‘I Am the Last Woman Object’ takes the form of an oversized female form with a television monitor for a stomach, which periodically displays a message: ‘I am the last woman object. You can take my lips, touch my breasts, caress my stomach, my sex. But I repeat it, it is the last time.’ The soft, pliable forms in The Giant Foot (1967) and White Foot Sofa (1968) – works that were meant to be opened up and sat upon – marked the artist’s first experiments with vinyl, a fabric that transformed her practice.

In 1975, Nicola L. began to concentrate on film projects. In 1977, she directed the feature film Les Têtes sont Encore Dans L’île (The Heads are Still in the Island) with Terry Thomas and Pierral, shot in Ibiza. In 1979, Nicola L. moved to New York, where she continued to focus on film-making. Her first documentary captured the punk-rock band Bad Brains at the Lower East Side nightclub CBGB. It was followed by a 1981 documentary about activist Abbie Hoffman. The artist’s final film was Doors Ajar at the Chelsea Hotel (2011), where she had lived for nearly three decades.

In the 1990s, Nicola L. returned to feminism through series of paintings and works on paper. For Poems by Dorothy Parker (1994), she created collages on wood that included a snail form along with a snippet of a poem. ‘The Femme Fatale’ painting series (1995), made from painted bed sheets accompanied by images and texts, explored women who had died tragic or violent deaths, among them Marilyn Monroe, Billie Holiday and Ulrike Meinhof.

Towards the end of her life, the artist continued to develop her ‘Pénétrables’ series, with several public performances, including The Blue Cape, which premiered in Cuba in 2002, followed by performances on the Great Wall of China, in 2005, and the Venice Biennale, in 2017. Red Coat was most recently performed in London on the occasion of the work’s display at Tate Modern in 2015.

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Works

Night in Back, 1987

Oil on canvas
Framed: 231.1 x 185.4 cm (91 x 73 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

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#23, 1988-1990

Newspaper clippings and oil on paper on canvas
221 x 185.4 cm (87 x 73 in)
Courtesy Alison Jacques, London and Nicola L. Collection and Archive © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Cut Me In Pieces, 1994

Ink, oil paint, newspaper clippings, synthetic negligee, underwear and stockings on canvas
228.6 x 182.9 cm (90 x 72 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive; photo: Michael Brzezinski

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Little TV Woman: ‘I Am the Last Woman Object’, 1969

Vinyl, wood and television
111.5 x 50 x 45 cm (43.9 x 19.7 x 17.7 in)
Installation view, SculptureCenter, New York, 2017. Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive; photo: Kyle Knodell

Snail Dining Table, c. late 1990s - early 2000s

Glass top and metal base
72.4 x 152.4 x 127 cm (28 1/2 x 60 x 50 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Eye (blue), 1969/1990

Plexiglass and steel
45.7 x 33 cm (18 x 13 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Woman Ironing Table #1, 2005

Wood and fabric top on aluminium base, iron
86.4 x 144.8 x 30.5 cm (34 x 57 x 12 in)
© Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Sun & Moon Giant Pénétrables, 1996

Ink, cotton, vinyl, wood
Sun: 330.2 x 137.2 cm (130 x 54 in) Moon: 322.6 x 129.5 cm (127 x 51 in)
© Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Herbe, c.1968-70

Watercolour and crayon on paper
68 x 50 cm (26 3/4 x 19 3/4 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Mer, c.1968-70

Watercolour, crayon and cotton on paper
68 x 50 cm (26 3/4 x 19 3/4 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

The World Goes Pop, 2015

Ink, cotton and wood
75 x 273.5 x 15 cm (29 1/2 x 107 5/8 x 5 7/8 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

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Ciel, c.1976

Ink on cotton and wood
227 x 102 x 17 cm (89 3/8 x 40 1/8 x 6 3/4 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Antarctica, c.2014

White sewn vinyl on mounted wood frame
83.8 x 83.8 cm (33 x 33 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Marijuana, 1970

Photographic print and oil on canvas
157.5 x 121.9 cm (62 x 48 in)
Courtesy: Alison Jacques, London and Nicola L. Collection and Archive © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

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Femmes Fatales: Frida Kahlo, 1995

Oil and collage on cotton on wood support
193 x 193 cm (76 x 76 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

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Femmes Fatales: Eva Hesse, 1995

Oil and collage on cotton on wood support
193 x 193 cm (76 x 76 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

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Femmes Fatales: Marilyn Monroe, 1995

Oil and collage on cotton on wood support
193 x 193 cm (76 x 76 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

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Series Tarot - L’Imperatrice, 1988

Watercolour, crayon and collage on paper
Unframed: 76.2 x 114.3 cm (30 x 45 in); framed: 84.5 x 122 x 4.5 cm (33 1/4 x 48 1/8 x 1 3/4 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive; photo: Michael Brzezinski

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Series Tarot - L’Empereur, 1988

Watercolour, crayon and collage on paper
Unframed: 76.2 x 114.3 cm (30 x 45 in); framed: 84.5 x 122 x 4.5 cm (33 1/4 x 48 1/8 x 1 3/4 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive; photo: Michael Brzezinski

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Red Lip Lamp, 1969

Plexiglass and steel
129.5 x 17.1 x 7.6 cm (51 x 6 3/4 x 3 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive; photo: Michael Brzezinski

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The Library Head, 2013

Oil paint on wood
213.4 x 162.6 x 30.5 cm (84 1/8 x 64 1/8 x 12 1/8 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Gold Femme Commode, 1969/1993

Painted birch
171.4 x 63.5 x 31.8 cm (67 1/2 x 25 x 12 1/2 in)
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

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Red Coat, Same Skin for Everybody, 1973

Performance documentation
Courtesy: © Nicola L. Collection and Archive

Sand, Sea, Sky, 1984

16mm film (digitised)

  • Night in Back, 1987
  • #23, 1988-1990
  • Cut Me In Pieces, 1994
  • Little TV Woman: ‘I Am the Last Woman Object’, 1969
  • Snail Dining Table, c. late 1990s - early 2000s
  • Eye (blue), 1969/1990
  • Woman Ironing Table #1, 2005
  • Sun & Moon Giant Pénétrables, 1996
  • Herbe, c.1968-70
  • Mer, c.1968-70
  • The World Goes Pop, 2015
  • Ciel, c.1976
  • Antarctica, c.2014
  • Marijuana, 1970
  • Femmes Fatales: Frida Kahlo, 1995
  • Femmes Fatales: Eva Hesse, 1995
  • Femmes Fatales: Marilyn Monroe, 1995
  • Series Tarot - L’Imperatrice, 1988
  • Series Tarot - L’Empereur, 1988
  • Red Lip Lamp, 1969
  • The Library Head, 2013
  • Gold Femme Commode, 1969/1993
  • Red Coat, Same Skin for Everybody, 1973
  • Sand, Sea, Sky, 1984

Press

Enter Nicola L.’s mysterious Fur Room

Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Art Basel

February 2025

On Nicola L.

Jo Applin, London Review of Books

Vol. 46 No. 24

Nicola L review – feminist fun for the furry-curious

Hettie Judah, The Guardian

November 2024

Material Girl

Amy Sherlock, World of Interiors

November 2024

Objectify me: furniture, fetish and feminism

Lou Stoppard, Financial Times

November 2024

How Nicola L. Sabotaged the Domestic

Philomena Epps, Frieze

November 2024

Review: ‘Nicola L.: I Am The Last Woman Object’

Clelia Rebecchi, Burlington Contemporary

November 2024

Review: ‘I Am the Last Woman Object’

Millie Walton, Plinth

November 2024

Nicola L. Probes the Generative Contradictions of Womanhood

Anna Souter, Hyperallergic

October 2024

Nicola L.: Tête Pleine

Common Language

June 2024

Nicola L.’s Omniscient Eye Lamp Continues to Intrigue

Hannah Martin, Architectural Digest

November 2023

An Introduction to the Feminist Art and Furniture of Nicola L.

Milly Burroughs, AnOther

April 2023

Nicola L.: Softening Modernism at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles

Frieze

March 2023

The Skin of Things

Elisabetta Garletti, Burlington Contemporary

June 2022

What to See this London Gallery Weekend

Salena Barry, Frieze

May 2022

London Gallery Weekend returns to galvanise a city

Melanie Gerlis, Financial Times

May 2022

‘Shell’ Del Vaz Projects

Ashton Cooper, Artforum

May 2022

Shell at Del Vaz Projects

Rachel Elizabeth Jones, Contemporary Art Review LA

March 2022

Shell | A Glimmering Temporality

Emmalea Russo, Flaunt

March 2022

Shells and Skins: The Body is a Home at Del Vaz Projects

Samantha Ozer, PIN-UP

March 2022

Top Shows to See During Frieze Week Los Angeles

Jonathan Griffin, Frieze

February 2022

The Utopian Erotics of Women Artists in the 1960s and ’70s

Philomena Epps, frieze

August 2021

Same Skin for Everyone: Nicola L. in the ‘Made in L.A.’ Biennial

Rachel Denniston, California Art Review

December 2020

Made in LA is Closed to the Public, We Take You Inside

Lindsay Preston Zappas, KCRW

November 2020

Nicola L, Whose Feminist Art Had a Useful Side, Is Dead

Roberta Smith, The New York Times

January 2019

Living with Nicola L.

Oliver Lanzenberg, Apartamento

July 2018

The Feminist and Critical Pop Art of Nicola L.

Emma Ng, Hyperallergic

December 2017

Review: Nicola L., SculptureCenter

Josephine Graf, frieze

October 2017

Before Boobs Were A Design Trend

Priscilla Frank, The Huffington Post

September 2017

Nicola L. Puts the Fun in Functional

Margaret Carrigan, Observer

September 2017

Interview: Nicola L.

Tate Modern

September 2015

Armed and dangerous: inside the world’s largest raincoat

Andrew Dickson, The Guardian

August 2015

Space of the Week: If These Walls Could Talk

Wendy Goodman, New York Magazine

May 2013

Nicola L.’s Body Language

Gary Indiana, Art in America

April 2009

Nicola L. ou le corps éclaté, version meubles

Véronique Cauhapé, Le Monde

May 2008

Exhibitions

Nicola L.

13 May23 July 2022

Books

Nicola L. Life and Art

Apartamento Publishing

2023

Nicola L.: Works, 1968 to the Present

SculptureCenter

2017

Profile Nicola L.

E-maprod Inc.

2005

Nicola L.

Norma Editions

2003

News

Nicola L.: Chelsea Girl

Frac Bretagne, France

Nicola L.: I Am The Last Woman Object

Camden Art Centre, London

Nicola L.

in ‘Hope’, Museion, Bolzano, Italy

Nicola L.: Life and Art Book Launch

New York, Paris & London

Nicola L.

in ‘The Mother and the Weaver: Art from the Ursula Hauser Collection’, The Foundling Museum, London

Nicola L. Life and Art

Apartamento Publishing

Nicola L.: Nous Voulons Entendre

Thomas Mann House, Los Angeles

Nicola L.: Exhibition talk

Flavia Frigeri, Ruba Katrib and Oliver Lanzenberg

Nicola L.

in ‘Future Bodies from a Recent Past: Sculpture, Technology, and the Body since the 1950s’, Museum Brandhorst, Munich

Nicola L.

in ‘Shell’, Del Vaz Projects, Santa Monica, Los Angeles

Nicola L.

in ‘Our Silver City, 2094’, Nottingham Contemporary

Nicola L.

in ‘Domestic Drama’, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz

Nicola L.

in ‘Made in L.A. 2020’, The Huntington, San Marino

Nicola L.

in ‘Made in L.A. 2020’, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Nicola L. & Hannah Wilke

in ‘She-Bam Pow POP Wizz ! The Amazons of POP’, MAMAC, Nice

Nicola L.: Works, 1968 to the Present

SculptureCenter, Long Island

Video

Nicola L.: Exhibition Talk: Flavia Frigeri, Ruba Katrib and Oliver Lanzenberg