Claire Gavronsky

Gallery News for Claire Gavronsky
Claire Gavronsky and Rose Shakinovsky in St. Petersburg
Works by Gavronsky and Shakinovsky are included on the group exhibition, Right to the Future, at the Museum of the 20th and 21st Century in St. Petersburg (25 October – 3 December). The exhibition is devoted to celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.
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Solo exhibitions
rosenclaire / Speechless / 2018
Goodman Gallery Cape Town
3 March – 6 April 2018Speechless marks rosenclaire’s fourth solo exhibition at Goodman Gallery in which Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky question the power of words to represent and relate to our surroundings.
In the words of the artists: ‘this exhibition registers an inability to comprehend and articulate the political, social and ecological crises experienced around the world today. This implies the breakdown of all secure structures including language, communication and materiality itself. We approach the ‘unspeakable’ from a position of warning but also of wonder.’
Speechless takes its cue from current discourse on the Anthropocene, described by writer Robert Macfarlane as ‘the new epoch of geological time in which human activity is considered such a powerful influence on the environment, climate and ecology of the planet that it will leave a long-term signature in the strata record.’ Macfarlane warns that ‘we have become titanic geological agents, our legacy legible for millennia to come’ in an attempt to urge human beings to consider the implications of our actions in terms of ‘deep time’ – beyond the here and now.
Deploying different visual languages, rosenclaire propound a shared belief in the world as an ever-shifting fusion of equal components, always in state of becoming. Their work can be read as part of a wave of artists, philosophers, scientists and anthropologists who ask that we look to new ways of relating to each other and to nature or else face extinction.
Shakinovsky’s semi-abstract prints strip back stock media images of recent natural disasters and social upheavals, including the fire in London’s Grenfell Towers, the Syrian refugee ‘crisis’, wildfires in California and the Natal floods, to create ‘a composition without balance or symmetry, mirroring the incoherence and collapse of the social and revenge of the natural’.
Within these alluring works, Shakinovsky boldly attempts ‘to represent the new visual language that may define these times,’ as she puts it, looking to re-represent ‘the underlying structure of disaster and the visual forms it takes.’
Gavronsky’s delicate pastel works posit a deflated colonial male figure as humbled in the face of nature and, at times, crippled by remorse as he is positioned on his knees before people exploited over the ages. In one work a man kneels before a flock of imposing Dodos, joining them in extinction.
Other paintings by Gavronsky evoke a scrapbook, or perhaps a crime wall, mapping key moments of human technological ‘progress’, from industrialization in the 1800s to the ‘Great Acceleration’ of the 1950s through to the present. Current world leaders, such as Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, loom large within this enmeshed narrative assemblage whereby human beings and natural resources continue to be exploited.
rosenclaire began collaborating in the 1980s when they moved from South Africa to Italy, where they run a residency program for international artists. Their collaboration is defined by two distinct artistic languages which grapple with their shared concerns. They have exhibited individually and collaboratively around the world, most recently in the group exhibition Right To The Future (2017) at the Museum of the 20th and 21st Century Art in St. Petersburg. They have collaborated with William Kentridge on a number of occasions and are known for producing public participatory works, such as the Soap Boxes sculpture commissioned by the South African National Gallery in Cape Town in 2003.
rosenclaire / Colour Theory / 2014
Goodman Gallery Cape Town is pleased to present, for our first show of 2014, an exhibition of new works by rosenclaire titled Colour Theory. The exhibition will feature a characteristic mix of collaborative and individual works by Claire Gavronsky and Rose Shakinovsky, presented in conversation.
The exhibition takes its title from a desire on the part of the artists to open up a discursive space between theoretical engagement and visceral response, between contemplation and surprise. Colour Theory can be understood in a social and political context, referring to racial categorisation and discrimination, as well as the ways in which we have been trained to “read” colour culturally. But colour, and our relationship with it, also exists in a place outside of these linguistic and cultural constructs. As the artists write: “Colour… has a voice and impact of its own, directly on the senses and emotions. It resonates in the silence when language reaches its limits, when words fail in the face of overwhelming joy, great suffering and pure aesthetic pleasure”.
Shakinovsky and Gavronsky work together and separately, but their artistic practice is symbiotic – the work, whether solo or collaborative, comes out of individual responses to the same stimuli, individual answers to the same questions. Often emerging from a pictorial dialogue, the content – or the question – dictates the shape and medium of the work, which ranges from unapologetically humble ready-made images to site specific installations. The ambivalent authorship of the works resulting from this dialogue – and their conversation, in turn, with the canon of art history – acts as a challenge to the notion of uniqueness and identifiable style as a signifier of artistic integrity.
Children feature prominently in many of Gavronsky’s paintings and drawings, acting alternately as a pair of naive and truthful eyes for the viewer to look through, and a source of mischief and daring, unhappy with the status quo and prepared to attempt the impossible. In Shakinovsky’s small abstract oils fashioned out of cut and bent canvas and paper, and other mixed media works, she is interested in shifting the viewer’s perspective – whether it be visually or conceptually – to notice or think something not thought a moment before. She often uses found quotidian objects and ready-made images, stripped of their original context and placed in unexpected relationships and combinations.
Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky, collectively known as rosenclaire, were born in South Africa and now live and work between Florence, and Cape Town. They have exhibited extensively both in South Africa and abroad. Together they established and run a prestigious art residency program in Tuscany, and they regularly conduct artist workshops in the United States, Italy and South Africa. Colour Theory is their third solo exhibition with Goodman Gallery.
rosenclaire / Immaterial Matters / 2012
Immaterial Matters at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg will be rosenclaire’s first exhibition in the city since they left for Italy in 1985. The show is a remix of work from their re.collections show at Goodman Gallery Cape in 2010, work shown recently in Europe and new works created for this exhibition.
In 2010 rosenclaire’s neon sign Invest in the Immaterial illuminated Cape Town, Johannesburg and Dakar calling for action that was not an obsessive amassing of material gain and visibility, but rather a virtual rebalancing of the scales.
Immaterial Matters takes up from there referring to works that range from the irreverent to the transcendent. The title and the work proffer two ideas: one, that the immaterial is what matters and two it asks a question about relevancy.
The medium matters only as a transient messenger of meaning whether it be oil paint, bronze, found objects, games, video or scraps of paper. The work explicitly defies categorisation and sites itself neither on the page nor in the margins but rather questions the materiality of the paper itself. That which is material, the visual plane, is proportionately relevant to that which resonates from it. Thoughts and responses that in their own diverse trajectory move from the political, to tongue in cheek play and repartee with art history to places of quietness and contemplation.
The show features works that address the current economic meltdown and sideswipe at the contemporary art world and it’s stock market mentality. In their respective oil paintings and bronzes rosenclaire re-present canons of figurative and abstract modernist work in the context of providing a lintel over the Posts and a lookout point to the great beyond. Art addresses and undresses itself in both form and substance. Matter shifts, changes, mutates as time, desire and fashion dictate.
Antimatter is a dualistic hypothesis as is Anti-art that struggles to maintain a position of dissensus in the face of the rampant commodification of art. rosenclaire’s work presents an intimate interlocution between themselves and a viewer where stereotypes are challenged and new perspectives offered.
Artistic duo Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky – collectively know as rosenclaire – were both born in South Africa and now live and work between Florence, Johannesburg and Cape Town. They left South Africa in 1985 for Italy, where they established a prestigious art residency programme in Tuscany. They have exhibited extensively both locally and internationally, and their work has featured at major events such as the Dakar Biennale and Spheres in France. Prominent public sculpture commissions include their Soap Boxes at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town. As well as conducting artist workshops in Italy and the United States, rosenclaire have returned regularly to South Africa to conduct workshops in Venda and Cape Town.rosenclaire / re•collections / 2010
Goodman Gallery Cape proudly presents the first solo exhibition by rosenclaire in South Africa for over twenty years. Working under the name rosenclaire, Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky present a conversation between their respective and collective practices and identities in re.collections.
The show’s title refers to a collection of arbitrary objects and thoughts waiting to be re-ordered, renamed and remembered: a heterogeneous gathering. Across-pollination between the flea-market, the studio, art history and personal experience, the show is a juxtaposition of painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. rosenclaire refer to their work as context-specific, governed by implicit signification where the subject matter defines the choice of media and stylistic convention.
re.collections, implies a reference to collections, collecting, correcting, naming, renaming and reframing cultural constructs of art and artifice. Here Gavronsky’s remake of Goya’s caprices, complimented by her large paintings and bronze sculptures tease and taunt our notions of art and marketing the mark. Shakinovsky’s museum sleuthing and Brechtian interruptions dissolve the boundaries and transgress the borders between art and non-art. A video by Shakinovsky from an ongoing series of illicitly filmed museum walks, and a sound piece by rosenclaire complete this intervention.
re.collections and its implications with regard to history and memory, both personal and political, are explored by Gavronsky, in a collapsing and enfolding of history, in which she presents Dante’s hell, side by side with the Beslan massacre of the innocents, in a series of large oil paintings.Shakinovsky intervenes with discarded and decontextualized found objects, now re.collected and reconnected into a new syntax. Magnifying glasses scrutinize, focus, enlarge and force the viewer to recollect and reflect. Many works ask the viewer to engage in joining the dots, to become creative participants in the visual and conceptual games presented by the artists.
rosenclaire’s neon sign on the outside of the gallery asking the public to “invest in the immaterial” echoes other contemplative works situated in a quiet space in the gallery. Shakinovsky pays homage to both Rancière and Derrida. Among other works we find discarded protective cardboard corners from Gavronsky’s paintings, bronzed and repainted, and erasers carefully arranged and placed directly on the wall. The play between art and non-art, sense and non-sense is ultimately subverted again by the beauty and stillness of the works that is echoed in the pathos and empathy of Gavronsky’s elegy to her father.Public Walkabout Saturday 20 February 2010 at 11am
Group exhibitions
Open End: An Exhibition of Paintings
Lisa Brice | Kudzanai Chiurai | Soly Cissé | Tom Cullberg | Claire Gavronsky | Robert Hodgins | David Koloane | Moshekwa Langa | Minnette Vári
There is an element of uncertainty inherent in the medium of paint – it is a fluid material that allows for various modes of expression, and as such is an ideal starting point for an examination of notions of nebulousness and accident.
Goodman Gallery Cape presents Open End, a group exhibition of paintings by both emerging and established artists that speaks to the element of uncertainty in artistic production and expression, and illustrates a process that seeks to arrive at meaning through search.
In an environment where so much emphasis is placed on work that is conceptually pre-determined, where the work is crafted around and invested with a deliberate and established message or meaning, the show aims to create a space for paintings produced without a clear conceptual starting point, focusing on the wrestle or the hunt for meaning rather than the expression of a packaged and determined project.
It is a simultaneously dangerous and powerful position to work from, unstable and vulnerable on the one hand, but filled with the potential of new and unexplored ideas, of work that is discursive and receptive to chance on the other. The title Open End refers not only to the absence of resolution, but to the very manner in which the work is approached: an embracing of uncertainty – or, to paraphrase Francis Bacon, a courting of accidents – in the search for meaning.
The exhibition will feature new works by Lisa Brice and David Koloane, and a painting created in situ by Kudzanai Chiurai. Tom Cullberg will show a series of abstract, perhaps metaphysical paintings dealing with the tensions that exist between the rational and the chaotic. Two anamorphic landscape-like paintings by Minnette Vári – first seen earlier this year as part of her solo show Parallax at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg – as well as several typically humorous and confrontational works by Moshekwa Langa will be included. Dakar-based artist Soly Cissé will show nine small monochrome paintings deftly straddling the figurative and the abstract, Claire Gavronsky will show an oil painting addressing notions of memory and loss, and several works by the incomparable Robert Hodgins illustrate the flex and the power of the medium.
The Marks We Make / 2010
Ryan Arenson | Walter Battiss | Deborah Bell | Justin Brett | Lisa Brice | Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin | Adam Broomberg | Kudzanai Chiurai | Marlene Dumas | Claire Gavronsky | Robert Hodgins | William Kentridge | David Koloane | Moshekwa Langa | Alexandra Makhlouf | Brett Murray | Sam Nhlengethwa | Walter Oltmann | Jonah Sack | Kathryn Smith | Jaco Spies | Clive Van Den Berg | Diane Victor | Jeremy Wafer | Sue Williamson
For many artists, drawing forms part of a larger process – a loose way of visualizing an artwork before committing to it in a more permanent medium. But the act of drawing itself remains one of the oldest and most eloquent forms of artistic expression. Goodman Gallery Cape is proud to present a group exhibition of drawings entitled ‘The Marks We Make’, exploring notions of mark-making as assertions of ownership and expressions of violence, memory and play.
Drawing usually refers to pencil marks on paper. In this exhibition we approach the term more loosely, featuring a range of media to question what constitutes a drawing and what gives it power. Works will include photographs from the Red House series by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, depicting the marks left behind by prisoners of Saddam Hussein in Iraq; wire and sculptural elements by Walter Oltmann and William Kentridge; installations by Jeremy Wafer, Jonah Sack and Justin Brett, as well as more traditional pencil, oil and charcoal drawings by Sue Williamson, Lisa Brice and Sam Nhlengethwa.
‘The Marks We Make’ brings together South African artists to explore the ways in which marks shape our environments and inform our perspectives. Bodies are circumscribed, silenced or marginalized by the invasive marks of violence. But these marks can also be used to express an identity, stake out a position or form communities. Territory is claimed, land contested, and ownership asserted through the use of marks, both physical and symbolic. The exhibition seeks to interrogate the ways in which these marks act to create the contingent, political spaces within which we form ourselves, and the role they play in shaping our personal and cultural memories.
Sphères 2009 / Le Moulin
Sphères 2009 Galleria Continua / Le Moulin
Joel Andrianomearisoa / Kader Attia / Willem Boshoff / Chris Burden / Angela de la Cruz / Carlos Garaicoa / Claire Gavronsky / Kendell Geers / Liam Gillick / Frances Goodman / Mark Handforth / Camille Henrot / Carsten Höller / Ann Veronica Janssens / Christoph Keller / Joseph Kosuth / Ange Leccia / Claude Lévêque / Pierre Malphettes / Thomas Mulcaire / Hans Op de Beeck / Nathaniel Rackowe Anselm Reyle / Ugo Rondinone / Bruno Serralongue / Rose Shakinovsky / Sudarshan Shetty / Nedko Solakov / Katja Strunz / Mikhael Subotzky / Sun Yuan & Peng Yu / Gavin Turk / Minnette Vari
Opening during the FIAC, Saturday, 24th of October 2009.
Preview from 12h00 – 14h30, brunch on the river bank.For the second edition, the Spheres project re-involves the participation of several contemporary art galleries of international dimensions prompted by one desire: to join their diverse forces and energies to develop a shared exhibition – a new kind of exhibition experience – with no submission to any restricting theme. The Galleries will present artists from the five continents, whose works will be installed in and will relate to various parts of the exceptional complex. In doing so, they will engage with the rich history of the site.
24 October 2009 – 30 May 2010
Participating galleries:
AIR DE PARIS
GALLERIA CONTINUA
GALERIE KRINZINGER
KAMEL MENNOUR
ALMINE RECH GALLERY
ESTHER SCHIPPER
GOODMAN GALLERY -
Biography
(b. 1957, Johannesburg)
Claire Gavronsky works in a variety of mediums, most notably in painting and sculpture. Her work often uses visual reference’s to historical paintings, and cues are sometimes taken from events from everyday life. Memory, racism, violence against women and children are some of the theme’s which run through her oeuvre. Her work also bridge’s sometimes complex narratives through overlaid images, and stories which link the past to the present.
In 1981 Gavronsky received a Master of Fine Art in painting, and she moved to Italy in 1985 and has since lived between Cape Town and Tuscany.
In Florence, Gavronsky established, with fellow artist Rosemarie Shakinovsky, an international artist’s residency workshop in Tuscany. After the success of these workshops they founded workshops in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Venda and Botswana. Gavronsky and Shakinovsky often collaborate under the name Rosenclaire. They also collaborate on occasion with William Kentridge. She has exhibited extensively in South Africa, Europe and the United States of America.
Solo Exhibitions
2014 Colour Theory with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Immaterial Matterswith Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 re.collections with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
1993 Infiltrare with Rose Shakinovsky, Studio Levi, Florence, Italy
1988 Cassirer Fine Art, Johannesburg, South Africa
1987 Karen McKerron Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1984 Karen McKerron Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1983 Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa
1983 The Copley Society, Boston MA, USA1982 Cassirer Fine Art, Johannesburg, South Africa
1981 Robert Enthoven Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1980 Things Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Group Exhibitions
2017 Right to the Future, Museum of 20th and 21st Century Art, St Petersburg, Russia
2016 New Revolutions: Goodman Gallery at 50, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Thinking, Feeling, Head, HeartThe New Church Museum , Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Do It, Michaelis Galleries UCT, Cape Town, South Africa2012 Advance/Notice, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Dakar Biennale, Senegal
2010 _Art 41 Basel, Goodman Gallery, Switzerland2009-2010 Dystopia, collaboration with William Kentridge, Pretoria,South Africa
2009-2010 Dystopia, collaboration with William Kentridge, Ghent, Belgium
2009-2010 Spheres 2009, Gallery Continua/Goodman Gallery, Le Moulin, Paris, France2009 Gesture, with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Miami Basel, USA
2009 Swamp Eyes, David Krut Projects, Implicit Art, New York / South Africa
2009 Sources: Contemporary Sculpture in the Landscape (Drive Game), Goodman Gallery, Nirox, Johannesburg, South Africa2007 Domestic Departures, California State University, Fullerton Gallery, USA
2007 SHIFT, The Gallery in Cork St, London, UK2006 Faces to Names, Alliance Française, Johannesburg, South Africa
2005 Soap Boxes with Rose Shakinovsky, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2005 William Kentridge in Collaboration, David Krut, Johannesburg, South Africa
2005 Works on Paper, Franchise Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2005 Synergy, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa2004 A Decade of Democracy with Rose Shakinovsky, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2003 Wulbari, Galleria Elena Privitera, Turin, Italy
2003 Afritalia, Galleria Limiti Inchuisi, Molise, Italy2000 TransAfricana, Bologna Cultura 2000, Bologna, Italy
1999 Progetto in Cubo, museo ai aperto, Florence, Italy
1996 Artists in Tuscany, Melbourne, Sydney, Australia
1995 La Città Ideale, Flumara d’Arte, Antonio Presti, Sicily, Italy
1994 X I T, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa
1993 Gasometro, Installation, Rome, Italy
1993 Project Conflux, Luxembourg
1993 Project Conflux, Dijon, France
1993 Project Conflux, Paris, France
1993 Project Conflux, Cape Town, South Africa1991 Outrageous Desire, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA
1990 Summer Academy Show, Salzburg, Austria
1988 Cape Town Triennale, Cape Town, South Africa
1988 Clay +, UNISA Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
1988 Vita Art Now, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa1987 8th International Drawing Bienniale, Cleveland, UK
1987 The British School, Rome, Italy
1987 The Dante Alighieri, Florence, Italy1985 Cape Town Triennale, Cape Town, South Africa
1985 Five Young Artists, Gallery International, Cape Town, South Africa1984 Grand Prix International d’Art Contemporain, France
1984 Women’s Festival, Natalie Knight Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1984 Cultural Resistance Festival, Gaborone, Botswana
1984 Total Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa1981 Crake Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1979 Total Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1978 New Signatures, Pretoria, South Africa
1978 Grand Prix International d’Art Contemporain, FranceTeaching, Lectureships and Workshop
1991-2010 Summer workshops for international students with Rose Shakinovsky, Tuscany, Italy
2005-2010 Workshops with Rose Shakinovsky, San Francisco & New York, USA
1997-2010 Workshops in Cape Town / Johannesburg / Venda, South Africa
1986-2001 Art Institute of Florence, Lorenzo de Medici, Italy – Teacher in Painting, Drawing, Sculpture
1984-1985 Johannesburg College of Art, South Africa – Teacher in Drawing
Awards and Merits
2003-2004 Commission for public sculpture with Rose Shakinovsky outside South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
1993 Award for Drawing, City of Lastra, Italy
1987 Award, 8th Drawing Biennale, Middlesborough, UK
1985-1987 Italian Government Grant for graduate studies abroad
1985-1987 Lithography, Il Bosente, Florence, Italy1985 Finalist in national sculpture competition, South Africa
Academic Record and Residencies
Residencies
2008/2009 Nirox Foundation, Artist in Resdience, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 USC Grand Central, Artist in Residence with Rose Shakinovsky, USA
1990 Salzburg Summer Academy with Jorg Immendorff and Erinna Konig
1990 Invited to work in Dusseldorf with Jorg Immendorff|1986 Cité International des Art, Paris, France
Education
1979-1981 Johannesburg College of Art, South Africa – Higher Diploma, Painting
Collections
City of Pettineo, Italy
Cleveland County Council, Middlesborough, UK
Il Bisonte, Florence, Italy
Durban Art Gallery, South Africa
South African National Gallery, Iziko, Cape Town, South Africa
Selected Articles and Reviews
2012 Michael Smith, Review, Artthrob, South Africa
2012 Mary Corrigal, In Defence Of Painting, Sunday Independent, South Africa
2012 Matthew Partridge, Mind Over Matters, Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg2010 Andrew Lamprecht, Rosenclaire A Subtle Pairing, Artthrob, South Africa
2009 Lore Watterson and Lara Koseff, A Perfomative Monument, Classicfeel, South Africa
2009 Mary Corrigal, Commodifying the Countryside, Sunday Times, South AfricaPublications
Catalogues
2009 Swamp Eyes, David Krut Projects, Implicit Art, NY/SA
2007 Domestic Departures: Essays, Amelia Jones and Tyler Stallings
2004 A Decade of Democracy, Emma Bedford
2003 Afritalia, Fuori Luogo 8: Campo Basso, MA Schroth
2003 Wulbari, Torino Wences Rambia2000 TransAfricana, Artisti Contemporanei, Renato Barilli and Gianni Baiocchi
1995 La Citta Ideale, Flumara d’Arte
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Videos
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Press for Claire Gavronsky
Critical Interventions - Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture
37435Newsbetweenpapandpolenta.pdf (1.6 MB)Rosenclaire / Artthrob / March 2012
Review by Michael Smith (140.6 KB)Rosenclaire / Sunday Independent / 18 March 2012
In defence of painting by Mary Corrigall (2.6 MB)Rosenclaire / Mail & Guardian / 16 March 2012
Mind over Matters by Matthew Partridge (1.3 MB)Rosenclaire / The Courier / June 2010
Rosenclaire Investing in the immaterial (1.5 MB)Rosenclaire / Artthrob / February 2010
Rosenclaire A Subtle Pairing by Andrew Lamprecht (559.4 KB)Rosenclaire / CLASSICFEEL / April 2009
A New Dimension (3.7 MB)Rosenclaire / Sunday Times / April 2009
Commodifying the countryside by Mary Corrigal (2.8 MB)Rosenclaire / CLASSICFEEL / September 2009
A perfomative monument by Lore Watterson and Lara Koseff (5 MB) -