Interview: Nicole Hollander

By Lauri Apple in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 23, 2009 6:30PM

Syndicated cartoonist Nicole Hollander is best-known for her Sylvia comic strip, which appears in dozens of newspapers nationwide. Today, Woman Made Gallery opens two shows that bear Hollander's touch: The group show And You Think That's Funny, which Hollander curated, involves around 50 women artists and runs until Feb. 26. WMG also hosts the first solo show of Hollander's work in 10 years, It's Enough to Make a Cat Laugh, running until Feb. 26. (685 N. Milwaukee Ave. 6-9 p.m.) Recently we chatted with Hollander about cats, humor and ostentatious weddings.

Chicagoist: How did this show come to be?

Nicole Hollander: Woman Made Gallery co-founder Beate Minkovski asked me if I would curate a show, and in exchange she would give me a solo show. As usual, I thought it would never happen. So I said, "let's call it, And You Think This Is Funny?" and women would send in their work. And they did, and I curated it.

It's an enormous show of women's humor. It's a real reason to go to an art gallery -- because art shows are usually not funny. And it's a chance for women to support other women.

C: How did you settle on this particular slant?

NH: I had written a book two years ago called Tales of Graceful Aging from the Planet Denial; I've been thinking about aging, but also about my whole life, and having done this kind of humorous essay about my life it seemed natural to do a show where you didn't have sculptures or drawings. I thought I would just continue to do my life, but do it visually and with less text.

I have a cat, Sally Cookie. I write that Sally Cookie is my karma, sent to me to point out the error of my ways. I'm always redecorating or changing my apartment or house -- or, in fact, moving. Sally Cookie's been incontinent, so she's managed to ruin all my furniture. It's like she's saying, "OK, I'll show you how to change your lifestyle."

For the last thing she ruined -- a pretty chaise lounge -- I just asked someone in the neighborhood to do a slip cover. But it was the wrong color -- so bright you could hardly look at it. Then, after a while, I thought: "There's really nothing I can do with this slip cover except make it into a piece of art. So I did. I photographed it, then took out a pile of books and arranged them on the couch and photographed that. The couch became a conceptual piece, with photos as a result. The photos are in the show, with text underneath about what I did. It's about the way I live my life -- I always want visual change.

C: Your solo show deals, in part, with aging. Describe one piece that discusses this subject.

NH: There's a piece that's a photograph of my shoulder to the tips of fingers. I'm holding out my arm, looking at it, and the upper arm is flabby.

I drew, "Whose big arm is that?" in text. Then I took that photo, took a magic marker and just made myself a smaller arm, and wrote underneath: "Oh, that's better." It's like 10-minute plastic surgery.

I did the same thing with my face -- pointing out the changes of my face, and how I hate them. Then, little by little, with the marker, the face is better -- it looks the way I looked when I was 40. And that's also better.

C: How is the show organized?

NH: To organize the show, so that it has a through-line that people can follow, I've drawn a 5'x7' black-and-white drawing of two people. One is me, a small woman in an armchair. Then there's a tall, skinny man dressed in, like, a chauffeur's uniform, and she speaks to him, and everything they say to each other introduces that section of the show.

There's a section about love affairs that went bad, with text and photographs. But probably the weirdest part of the show is ... that for a long time I've been collecting condom packaging -- because I had this idea that it not only would be an interesting hobby, but that someday, when we don't use condoms anymore, because w'eve found something else, that these will be worth something becaus they will be so odd. So it's about 50 packages. Packaging for condoms is often very funny because there is something essentially funny about this kind of contraception, so there's jokes or images on them or images that are well-designed. I had the help of some really great display people to help me set up that piece.

C: What were your criteria for the group show?

NH: I wanted it to be visually pleasing and also really funny, and that's really hard.

C: How did you get submissions?

NH: People submitted work online. That's how I did it -- I probably looked at 200 pieces online. But it's very hard, for artists and curating, to create a show of "funny."

C: Were any entrants completely off the mark?

NH: Some people didn't get it at all. And you think, ''I thought we all did." But no, we don't. Which is fascinating in itself.

Sometimes, when you watch stand-up comics, you're so disappointed. Taste is one part of it -- is something someone does so distasteful that it can't be funny? I watch Chris Rock and think, "This man has an attitude that's so medieval," but at the same time I'm laughing because he takes it and makes it into something that makes you laugh.

C: What are your thoughts on women and humor -- do you think it's more "acceptable" now for women to be funny?

NH: I just feel that things with women and humor haven't changed. I think of it as watching honey drop off a spoon. How many women stand-ups are there?

There's hardly any women cartoonists -- there's more stand-ups. Surprisingly enough, stand-up comedy has expanded to include women. But if you look at a show like Jon Stewart's -- it's an incredible show, politically brilliant -- but he has Samantha Bee. That's it. Everyone else on the show is a male. And Samantha Bee is very good. My personal opinion is her husband is not.

C: What do you think is required to be successfully funny?

NH: Confidence, and ego. I think in order to get up and make people laugh -- the phrase, "I made you laugh, I killed them" -- well, it's aggressive. Now, humor isn't aggressive, but it involves strategy, and catching people off-guard, and women are actively discouraged from doing this. You have to overcome a tremendous amount to get up there. Getting up there and making people laugh is more fun than you can imagine.

C: Women comics seemed to gain momentum from the Sarah Palin vice-presidential nomination. Thoughts?

NH: When Sarah Palin appeared on the scene, there were a bunch of women who were fabulously talented and making fun of her. I think Tina Fey single-handedly made Palin a joke.

C: What are you working on now?

NH: I'm working on a new book. This book is tentatively called The Dreadful Wedding, and it's about what happens when you go over-the-top with your wedding. When you want to be unusual and unique, and you instead lose perspective and go way overboard.

People really want to have an expensive, beautiful setting. It made me think about the whole idea of weddings, and how self-centered everyone becomes. So the book takes something like a champagne fountain and asks, "what if we put sharks in it"?