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(Tara Miller)
Jordan persisted in personal connection to subject of her portraits when she went out into the community to find individuals connected to her work.

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(Tara Miller)
Reflect and Persist: What is going on with the artist over time/personal history. The way the artist works in the the world/art world: the energy, the life changes, the self doubt.

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Printing Two Perspectives (Brian Jurgen)

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Printing Two Perspectives (Brian Jurgen)

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Lisa Springer- Observe
Brian Jurgen examines and reveals the negative viewpoint of mainstream culture on Native culture, and juxtaposing it to the over self aggrandizing images of white culture.

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https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/theaster-gates-collecting-short/
(Thom Parker)
Express
In Chicago he purchased a mom and pop hardware store from a man who owned it for 30 yrs and was retiring. Theaster was able to turn an isle of stuff into a work of art. Kind of a glance of history but also, the deeper story is the life of the man who owned the store and how the inventory was important to him. He did something similar with a book store, record store and thousands of copies of Jet magazine. I felt a strong emotion as he spoke about the hardware store.

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Luis Mestas
Persistence
Joan Jonas, a pioneer of performance and video, works in video installation, sculpture, and drawing, often collaborating with musicians and dancers to realize improvisational works that are equally at home in the museum gallery and on the theatrical stage. She exhibits in her work the habit of mind of persistence- as she says that is determined to create works that she likes, and works at creating them.

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Engage and Persist. Jorden Casteel makes visible representations of the humanity of black men in her community, having them gaze directly and intimately at the viewer. She does this to counter the negative stereotypes, police violence, and implicit bias faced by her community.

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(Tara Miller) Anger, Lashing out is the impulse to create. The Artist is demonstrating a reflection of his purpose in creating "sound suits."

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https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/brian-jungen-printing-two-perspectives-short/
By printing both sides of newspaper articles concerning Natives, Jungen was reflecting on the perspectives that the "mainstream" had on native peoples. The articles usually had negative, racist, or sexist vibes, and the other side was usually an ad showing an ironic opposite or similarity. As he prints the two sides together, observers are forced to reflect on the differences and similarities of the front and back sides of the original paper.

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(Jo Anderson)
Sarah Sze
https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/sarah-sze-designing-a-subway-station-short/
Sarah used envisioning to plan out her large-scale subway station project. She had the idea of wanting to create the feeling of how we move through space and she needed to imagine how the piece would make people feel as they moved through the station.

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Express - Damian Ortega demonstrated the studio habit of expression by creating a piece of art that conveys a message. He used a collage tools to show that there many possibilities out there and how we see everything through tools. Before creating this piece he used envisioning as he gathered various tools from a flea market in Berlin that he went to each weekend. https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s8/damian-ortega-in-season-8-of-art21-art-in-the-twenty-first-century-2016-preview/

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https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/theaster-gates-collecting-short/

Collecting By Theaster Gates. Theaster seems to be observing by analyizing and cataloguing collections made by different store owners and expressing because he is trying to convey an idea that each collection means to each collector.

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https://art21.org/watch/new-york-close-up/avery-singers-next-painting/

Avery Singer has shown persistence when working with her painting. She reminds me of myself when creating and putting paint onto a canvas. She knows what she needs to create, before it is even on the canvas. I admire her creativity and her persistence as she follows her idea from start all the way to finish. I enjoyed watching this video depicting her pursuit of the final project.

1. Persisting: Sticking to task at hand; Follow through to completion; Can and do remain focused.

“I feel incredibly free when I have an art idea.
Being an artist is almost like, a pursuit of thisfeeling of freedom. I love that feeling.
I live for that.”

Avery Singer

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Envisioning - imagining the possible steps in making such a huge piece and being able to convey the feelings through that vision

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Engage and Persist... 10 yrs. working on the subway project

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Thick Skin
Artist: Nick Cave
Nick is a black male who was the only minority in art school.  He was told to develop thick skin in order to operate in a world that will work against him in terms of gender, race and class.  When he is enraged , he uses "quiet" instead of the act of lashing out.  He uses "quiet" to create.
Express - Nick Cave uses quiet to create works that convey his feelings, ideas and personal meaning.
Engage and Persist - He overcomes his problems in society and in the art world. He is able to create despite constant challenges.

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The artist, Liz Magic Laser and her merry band of actors, performed theater on the streets of New York, and at banks and other financial institutions. They exhibited the habit of mind of engaging and persisting - often being thrown out of banks, ATM's etc, but continuing their art just down the street at the next ATM or bank. The artists also practiced the habit of mind - understand the art world. People on the street, at the bank or ATM became part of the theater, challenging not just the artists, but ordinary people to express and reflect on the art.

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How can changing the context for a performance alter its meaning? In this film, artist Liz Magic Laser directs a group of actors performing theatrical scenes in public locations throughout New York City. "There's a respect for the material but then there's a complete disrespect for how they're supposed to be done," explains Laser, who describes her approach as "playing with the tension between script and context and somehow a mismatch between the two."

For Laser's performance chase (2009-10), Bertolt Brecht's play Man Equals Man (1926)-an allegory of capitalist greed and militarism-is staged in public bank vestibules throughout New York City in the aftermath of the 2007-08 financial crisis. Laser worked with each actor individually, rehearsing and filming scenes one-on-one, and later edited the footage together to reconstitute the play's plot and dialogue. Improvising in each location, actors also deliver dialogue to unsuspecting customers, bank signage, and ATMs.

"It was like playing a practical joke on someone over and over, but there was never a punch line," says Laser, who was frequently kicked out of the banks during filming only to move to a vestibule on the next block. For Laser's Flight (2011), the artist choreographed six actors performing staircase-based chase scenes from 23 films on the Times Square TKTS booth bleachers. Tracing the history of trauma in cinema-in films such as M (1931), The French Connection (1971), The Shining (1980), and A History of Violence (2005)-the performance is conceived as a 30-minute climactic moment, with actors quickly switching roles from victim to villain throughout.

"We're rehearsing for emotions through this material constantly," says Laser, "It doesn't matter that we know it's fake. It still has a pretty intense impact on us psychologically." Performed amidst a live audience, Flight invites viewers to shift from passive witnesses to active participants, interrupting violent acts in a way that's impossible to do at the movies.

Featuring additional commentary from the actors Nic Grelli, Michael Wiener, Lia Woertendyke, and Max Woertendyke.

More information and credits

Credits

Art21 New York Close Up Created & Produced by: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Editor: Brad Kimbrough. Cinematography: Don Edler, Nicholas Lindner, John Marton, and Andrew David Watson. Sound: Scott Fernjack. Associate Producer: Ian Forster. Production Assistant: Amanda Long and Tida Tippapart. Design & Graphics: Crux Studio and Open. Artwork: Liz Magic Laser. Additional Camera & Sound: David Guinan, Collin Kornfeind, Liz Magic Laser, Kenny Lewis, Boman Modine, Polemic Media, Tim Wagner, and Eric Yoon. Thanks: Annika Boras, Audrey Crabtree, Cori Kresge, Andra Eggleston, Alan Good, Nic Grelli, Elizabeth Hodur, Gary Lai, Liz Micek, Justin Sayre, Doug Walter, Michael Wiener, Lia Woertendyke, Max Woertendyke, and Cat Yezbak. An Art21 Workshop Production. © Art21, Inc. 2013. All rights reserved.

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Stay inspired this summer with Summer of Shorts, featuring ten new films premiering across ten consecutive Fridays throughout the summer.

Liz Magic Laser was born in 1981 in New York, where she lives and works. Laser's practice includes video and performance as well as sculpture and installation. Dissecting ideas of power and how it is performed, Laser has worked with such forms as presidential speeches, TED Talks, and nightly news broadcasts. She often integrates audience participation into works that involve social and political critiques, and has staged performances in public spaces such as banks and movie theaters. More recently, Laser has expanded her interest in the construction of identities to include children and the ways in which their self-perception is influenced by the news media.

ART21 is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization; all donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

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Liz Magic Laser's Guerrilla Theater - Art21

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Art21 is a celebrated global leader in presenting thought-provoking and sophisticated content about contemporary art, and the go-to place to learn first-hand from the artists of our time. A nonprofit organization, Art21's mission is to inspire a more creative world through the works and words of contemporary artists.

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Name of, or link to video (or segment) watched plus a short description of how the artist exhibits that habit.