This double feature explores the distance between–and proximity of—the Western Canon and our own gonzo contemporary world, as well as just art and life.

Harrel Fletcher’s Blot Out the Sun is an adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses set in a garage shop in Portland, OR. The owner of the shop, Jay, inspired the movie when he observed, echoing Joyce, that it was as if every kind of thing and person passed through his auto shop every day.

Margaux Williamson’s Teenager Hamlet is a portrait of young artists in 21st century Canada, including, but not limited to, Williamson herself and friend Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be (which in turn features Williamson as a main character). In part a self-reflexive treatise on the turn to documentary movie-making by Williamson, a painter, Teenager Hamlet makes a story from real life while sorting through the distinctions and confusions between acting in a play and taking action in the world.

Margaux Williamson lives in Toronto and was born in Pittsburgh. She’s exhibited her paintings internationally. In 2008, she took a break from exhibiting. During that time, she made the movie Teenager Hamlet which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and can now be found on Ubuweb. She started writing movie reviews in 2010 and helped found the cultural review site Back to the World with the critics Carl Wilson and Chris Randle. Her work has been reviewed or featured by Canadian Art Magazine,The Toronto Star, The Artfag, LA Times, Five Dials, The New York Times, among others. She collaborates with the band Tomboyfriend, with the lecture series Trampoline Hall and with the writer Sheila Heti on various projects including The Production Front where they initiate projects with other artists. Most recently, she was the artist in Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She’s currently working on a new painting series.

Tom McCormack is a writer and curator living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Moving Image Source, Film Comment, Cinema Scope, Rhizome, The Brooklyn Rail, and other publications.

Harrell Fletcher received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (1990), and a MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts (1994). For over ten years Fletcher has worked collaboratively and individually on interdisciplinary, site-specific projects exploring the dynamics of social spaces and communities. Along with this work he has developed a series of more personal and idiosyncratic pieces that take various forms: drawings, prints, writings, events, videos, and sculptural objects.

Fletcher has created exhibitions at Gallery HERE in Oakland, New Langton Arts, Southern Exposure, The McBean Project Space, Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, and The de Young Museum in San Francisco, Alleged Gallery in NYC, COCA in Seattle, WA., and PICA, in Portland Oregon. He has been commissioned to produce public art projects for the San Francisco Art Commission, The Washington State Art Commission, The University of Minnesota, the City of Fairfield, CA, and Portland, Oregon’s Regional Art and Culture Council. Fletcher has work in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the De Young Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the New Museum in NYC. He has received grants and residencies from The Creative Work Fund, Gunk, Creative Capital, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the California Arts Council. Fletcher has taught in a wide variety of settings from public grade schools to Stanford University.

Born 1967 – Santa Maria, CA

Alpert Award for visual artist, California Institute of the Arts and Herb Alpert Foundation, 2005