Measure Up is an Illegal Art project that invites us to compare ourselves with famous figures through brands with different heights and names made on door frames installed in ARTZ, encouraging public participation as a creative-collective experience.
At one time or another, we've all admired public figures, from movie stars and athletes, to activists, explorers, scientists and artists. Giants in their fields, they have adorned magazines and screens to be larger than the life inside our minds. But how big are they in real life? Are we up to them?
Measure Up is a project commissioned by Arte Abierto, which plays with the indicator of international childhood growth: the frame of the home door marked with centimeters. Along an outdoor path, wooden structures were placed, simulating these frames, each indicating the height and names of well-known personalities from culture, science or history, whom we admire or aspire to look like.
The intention was to put things into perspective and that, through their height, each participant could identify and create a bond with these characters.
Measure Up is active at ARTZ from October 12th to November 30th, 2019.
The Illegal Art collective was founded in 2001 by artists Otis Kriegel and Michael McDevitt in New York. Its goal is to create participatory public art to inspire self-reflection, thinking and human connection. Each piece is presented or distributed in a way that encourages participation and is simple. His projects have been installed in the United States and South America, Europe and the Middle East.
The results of their project, Suggestion Box, were published by Chronicle Books (Suggestion, August 2005). Suggestion Box has also traveled to three continents, activated by individuals and groups from their local communities, collecting suggestions from tens of thousands of people, in numerous languages.
Illegal Art's work has appeared in media outlets such as National Public Radio, WNYC Radio, American Public Radio, The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Flavorpill, The Public Art Review, Dwell Magazine, International Herald Tribune, Ad Age, The Guardian and the New York Times.
They were the first artists in residence at the 2013 SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas and have been awarded residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Webb School of Knoxville and others.
Co-founder Otis Kriegel talks about the work of Illegal Art at TEDx Manhattan Beach in October 2018. Illegal Art also collaborates with other groups and institutions such as the architectural collective 1319, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the Museum of Urban Art in Rome.
His work has been published in numerous catalogs in the United States and Europe.
In September 2019, Illegal Art presented its projects in Mexico City for the first time: The Last Word, Suggestion Box, What Color Are You?, and Measure Up (an installation commissioned by Arte Abierto). The four public art pieces were located within ARTZ, and Suggestion Box was activated at Arte Abierto and at different locations throughout Mexico City. Each piece seeks public participation as a collective creative experience.
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