Article from The Independent

Actor Idris Elba

Black British actors should head to Hollywood as quickly as they can because they won't find leading roles in the UK, David Harewood, the acclaimed National Theatre performer, has advised.

Harewood, the first black actor to play Othello at the National Theatre, was recently awarded an MBE and has enjoyed a successful stage career.

He played Nelson Mandela in a BBC film but after supporting roles in a number of television series, including Doctor Who and Robin Hood, the Birmingham actor, 46, has only now made his big breakthrough after securing a leading part in Homeland, a Golden Globes-winning American drama about the War on Terror.

Harewood said it was a “fact” that young British actors have to follow the example of Idris Elba, Adrian Lester and himself by accepting that they will struggle to find roles that match their talents in Britain.

“There really aren’t enough strong, authoritative roles for black actors in this country,” Harewood told a Bafta screening of Homeland, the series to be screened by Channel 4, in which he plays the CIA’s head of counter-terrorism.

“A lot of my contemporaries have gone to the US. I would encourage young black British actors to get to America if they have ambition.

“They do seem to embrace a more diverse palate there. I think that’s sad but that’s the facts. I would encourage them to get there as quickly as you can.”

Harewood cited Idris Elba, the Hackney actor, who won the lead in the BBC1 detective drama Luther, after he had established himself as a charismatic drug lord in the award-winning HBO series The Wire.

“I was talking to Idris about his frustration and he said ‘I’m going to America’,” Harewood said. “It took him a long time to crack it with The Wire but he wouldn’t have been given a role of that weight and authority in the UK. That’s a fact.”
Harewood added: “There’s a lack of ambition in in terms of telling a global story here. We are quite parochial. The best of US television is risk-taking.”

Adrian Lester, the Hustle star, is also departing the UK to try to break into Hollywood, saying: “As a black actor…you only see yourself travelling as far as people like you have travelled.”

Harewood, who returned to the NT to play Theseus in Moira Buffini’s Welcome To Thebes, said: “I’d like to replicate the variety of those roles on screen. I’ve played Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela but those great roles are few and far between for us.”

Harewood won his role in Homeland, named by President Obama as his favourite series, after sending the producers a video audition. “I’ve been auditioning for US drama series for years. I forgot all about it for two months until I got a call from my manager saying I was close to getting it,” he said.

He is now contracted for seven years on the hit Showtime show which stars fellow Brit Damian Lewis as a US Marine Sergeant who may have been turned by al-Qa'ida after being captured in Iraq.

Doors are now opening to Harewood for Hollywood films after impressing with his performance as intelligence chief David Estes in the series, which also features Claire Danes and is produced by the team behind the counter-terrorism series 24.

British black actors who found success in the US include Lennie James and Chiwetel Ejiofor, the Laurence Olivier award-winner who starred in the $200 million Roland Emmerich blockbuster disaster movie, 2012.

The young black British experience was the subject of a Channel 4’s Top Boy, set amid Hackney’s gang wars, which starred Ashley Walters. Despite becoming a Hollywood name, Ejiofor took the lead role as a troubled police detective in the BBC2 series, The Shadow Line.

Clemens von Wedemeyer 'Against Death' (2000), courtesy the artist and Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris

Part II  Preview:  Against Death
Wednesday 8 January  6 — 8 pm

CIRCA Projects are proud to present the first solo exhibition in the UK, outside of London,
by the German artist Clemens von Wedemeyer.  The celebrated work of von Wedemeyer is characterised by its exploration of the rituals of cinema and documentary, and by its use of looping narratives and dizzying repetition. For this solo exhibition, a different film from von Wedemeyer will open every two weeks. Against Death (2009) and From the opposite side (2007), represent the artist's use of cinematic strategies and motifs in his attempt to draw together the relationship between the two languages of cinema and art. Emerging out of the artworks themselves, the concept for this exhibition format draws on the constantly revolving scenarios we see in von Wedemeyer’s films as they loop temporally, physically and narratively within a space, pushing the boundaries of the screen.  A new publication – with film stills and text by Axel Lapp – will accompany the exhibition.

Against Death
9 February  — 24 February
Preview: 8 February  6 — 8 pm

For the final part of the exhbition 'Clemens von Wedemeyer', following the presentation of From the opposite side, CIRCA Projects present the artists only work made in the UK.  In Against Death (2009) a man has seemingly become immortal after joining a tribal ritual. The film is part of von Wedemeyer’s project The Fourth Wall (2009), an exploration of the myth of the Tasaday people – an allegedly undiscovered tribe in the Philippine rainforest which came to international attention in the 1970s. At CIRCA Screen, Against Death is presented together with the film Interview (2009) which depicts the talking head of Geoffrey Frand, described as lecturer, ethnographer and actor; it is not at all obvious which guise we are seeing.  This is the first time Against Death has been presented in the UK since it's original commission and exhibtiion at Barbican, London, in 2009.

Publication Launch
Wednesday 8 February  6 — 8 pm
To mark the occasion of the exhibition 'Clemens von Wedemeyer', CIRCA Projects have produced a new limited edition publication, available in an edition of 100, with new text by writer, curator, publisher and Art Review's Contributing Editor for Berlin, Axel Lapp.

Clemens von Wedemeyer was born in 1974 in Göttingen, Germany. He lives and works in Berlin.  Between 1996 and 2005 he studied at the Fachhochschule Bielefeld and the HGB Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. In 2005 he received the Kunstpreis der Böttcherstrasse in Bremen. In 2006 he was the winner of the German competition at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen as well as the Karl-Schmidt-Rottluff-Stipendium. Wedemeyer has exhibited at the Moscow Biennial in 2005 and at the Berlin Biennial in 2006. In 2007 he participated in the Skulptur Projekte Münster. Solo exhibitions include Kölnischer Kunstverein; MoMA PS1; Barbican Art Centre, London; and in 2011, the Frankfurter Kunstverein; Project Arts Cente, Dublin; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; and the Jüdischen Museum, Berlin.

Clemens von Wedemeyer
at CIRCA Screen
ThePlace, Atheneaum Street
Sunderland SR1 1QX

Opening Hours:
Tuesday — Friday: 12 pm — 5 pm

circaprojects.org

Image: Steve McQueen

Just what do migrant workers contribute to the UK?  It’s a question being asked by Immigration Minister Damian Green, who this week will reveal details of the government’s new immigration policy.  But it’s a question also being asked by art gallery Tate Britain. On Tuesday, a new exhibition will open which explores how British art has been shaped by the impact of migrant artists

As an island nation, it’s perhaps easy to think of ourselves as a homogenised culture that didn’t become subject to external influences until the post-war immigration of the 20th century. But the Migrations exhibition argues that this interchange of ideas and influences had already been going on for centuries beforehand. As curator Lizzie Carey-Thomas said: “What we’re really saying is you can’t consider the history of British art without considering the history of migration and impact it had on art.”

Migrations is an exhibition notable primarily for its theme rather than the work itself – most of which comes from Tate’s permanent collection so may already be familiar to regular visitors.  That’s not to say that there aren’t some surprises, primarily the more recent film and video work by artists such as Steve McQueen, Francis Alys and Zineb Sedira. But the show is at its strongest when encouraging us to think again about Tate’s collection – and what, in fact, we understand by the term “British art”.

Avant garde

So the exhibition explores how American artist Whistler introduced abstraction to Britain in the second half of the 19th century. It examines the influence of avant garde artists like Mondrian who came to Britain to escape Nazi persecution during the Second World War. And it reveals that the landscape – often considered that most quintessentially British of art forms – was actually imported to a 17th century Britain still dominated by portraiture by northern european artists like Keirincx and Siberechts.

Of course there are plenty of examples of foreign artists coming to live and work in Britain during the 20th century – from Paula Rego to Anish Kapoor.  Many of these were attracted by the openness to cultural influences which has come to define modern Britain and the vibrant community of artists living and working here.

But looking ahead to the future, many people in the art world now believe that the migration of artists into Britain is slowing down. And that as a result, the nature of this dialogue between British art and external influences could be changing.

Foreign influences

Over the last decade, many of the best-known British artists – such as Tacita Dean, Douglas Gordon and Susan Philipsz – have left the UK to work in cities like Berlin. They’ve been followed by waves of younger artists attracted by cheap rents and studio space, and what’s becoming a burgeoning community of artists.

But of course this doesn’t mean that the interchange of ideas between British and foreign artists has slowed down. In an increasingly globalised art market, and with international communication now easier than ever, British art continues to be shaped by foreign influences.

The exhibition at Tate Britain ends with Static, a film of that icon of immigration the Statue of Liberty, by Steve McQueen. McQueen lives and works in Amsterdam, has galleries in London, Paris and New York, and exhibits around the world – perhaps challenging our very understanding of what it means to be a British artist.

Article written by Matthew Cain, Channel 4 Arts and Culture correspondent:

Article source: http://blogs.channel4.com/culture/art-immigration/2174

Follow @MatthewCainC4 on Twitter.