Otis Kriegel is a multi-disciplinary working artist focused upon the intersection of social interaction and society.
Most recently, Kriegel's video, I Love My Woman, where he interviewed over 80 men on the streets of New York City, asking them the simple question, "Why do you love your woman?", was selected as a finalist at the 2011 New Jersey Film Festival. An extension of this video was created to continue the initial work via the internet, encouraging men to upload video about why they love the woman they're with at the website www.ILoveMyWoman.org.
Otis is best-known for co-founding the New York based public art collective, Illegal Art, whose interactive pieces, since their beginning in 2001, have been installed throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America and Africa. The results of their project, Suggestion Box, were published by Chronicle Books (Suggestion, August 2005). He has spoken at universities about this work, as well as presenting at the 2008 College Art Association Annual Conference. Illegal Arts work has been featured by National Public Radio, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, The Public Art Review, Dwell Magazine and others. Illegal Art's work has also been the featured Op-Art piece in The New York Times (1/1/06; 9/3/07; 12/31/09).
Kriegel's first body of work was the result of the photographic documentation of his relationship with his students, grades 1st-3rd, during his first three years as an elementary school teacher in the public schools of Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City. Excerpts of this project were published in The Sun Magazine. In the summer of 2000, he joined award-winning investigative journalist Jacques Leslie as his photographer and interpreter, exploring the colonia communities along the Mexican/United States border in Texas for Harpers Magazine.
Kriegel continues to work in photography, film, video, writing and public art. Kriegel was the recipient of an Artist’s Grant from the Vermont Studio Center for a summer residency in July 2010. He was also selected from a national search as the 2010 Artist-in-Residence at Webb School of Knoxville, in Knoxville, Tennessee.
He works as an elementary school teacher in a New York City public school and trains new elementary teachers at New York University, City College and The Bank Street College of Education. He is the founder of the website, The K5, providing advice to parents of elementary school age children through short, entertaining videos that he has written and produced. Otis lives in Manhattan.