Camden Art Centre, London
Pop and avant garde sensibilities join forces in this playful show, full of giant limbs, wearable furniture and bare bottoms
According to Wikipedia, the slanket – a wearable blanket with sleeves – was invented in 1998 by an American called Gary Clegg. Congratulations, Gary, but as regards this indispensable contribution to human comfort, Nicola L could rightfully claim to have got there first. The French artist, born Nicola Leuthe, had a cosy line in wearable artworks, known as pénétrables. Most are large, coloured canvases, hung on the wall with shaped sections into which you can insert your face, arms and legs. Others are rather cosier. Currently taking up substantial acreage at Camden Art Centre in London is the soft and fluffy Grey Rug for Five People (1975), essentially a family-size slanket.
The most appealing works in the show, titled I Am the Last Woman Object, hover between the worlds of art and design. These are jazzy, functional furnishing items made like body parts – freestanding bookshelves shaped like heads in profile, lamps like cartoon eyes, a giant foot that you can lounge upon, piles of cushions shaped like dismembered male limbs. A natty little ironing board – Woman Ironing Table #1 (2005) – features an iron shaped like a penis.
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