Nicola L.: The Doors Ajar at the Chelsea Hotel

The Chelsea Hotel played a major role in Nicola L.’s artistic life. After visiting the hotel several times during the 1960s and becoming closely connected to its residents and vibrant art scene, she moved into the Chelsea Hotel in 1988, where she lived for the final decades of her life.

“I have opened my doors to all kind of survivors, most of them artists”

In 2007, the Chelsea Hotel was sold, with plans to transform it into a luxury hotel. In the years that followed, many residents were legally forced out, bought out, or chose to leave. Until 2017, behind zipped-up protective plastic meant to keep out construction dust, the doors to the last remaining apartments were hidden.

In 2012, Nicola L. turned the spotlight onto these final residents in her film DOORS AJAR AT THE CHELSEA HOTEL. “I have opened my doors to all kind of survivors, most of them artist,” says the narrated and personified Chelsea Hotel, voiced by actress Sylvia Miles. The film captures the atmosphere and energy of the hotel’s final years through narration, interviews with remaining residents, and performances by Nicola L.. In her press release describing the film, she wrote, “We buildings speak, but you humans cannot hear us.”

“We buildings speak, but you humans cannot hear us.”

This one-off screening takes place in the framework of the closing weekend of the exhibition Nicola L.: When the Earth Turned the Other Way (26 June–18 October 2026) at M HKA, which situates her work within a broader constellation of performance, feminist experimentation, and collaborative image-making. Born in Morocco and active across Paris, Brussels, New York, and Ibiza, Nicola L. developed a transnational and community-oriented artistic practice that occupied a singular place within the postwar avant-garde. From the late 1960s onward, she created a highly distinctive body of work encompassing soft sculptures, immersive environments, and participatory performances in which touch, use, and collective experience became central artistic principles.

During the opening weekend of the exhibition at M HKA, on Saturday 27 June at 5 pm, we will screen IBIZA BODIES: SUMMER FILMS OF NICOLA L., a programme of three films made during and around her time in Ibiza in the 1960s and 1970s. Immersed in the island’s artistic community, Nicola L. captured Ibiza as a landscape shaped by experimentation, collective living, and shared experience.

Header image: Nicola L. Collection & Archive (Photo: Rita Barros)