Duke Riley And The Naval Battle At The Queens Museum (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

Men, women, children, and some people in between those three came out to Queens Thursday night to take part in a violent mock naval battle. Organized by artist Duke Riley, art museums representing each of the city's five boroughs fought "to the death" in boats made of wood, reeds, and whatever else team members could salvage.

Thousands of people got into the mix, throwing tomatoes, loaves of bread and water balloons as the Queens Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and El Museo del Barrio all fought for whatever passes for museum street-cred these days.

Despite claims of cheating, the Queens Museum was declared the winner.

Matthew Rodigheri documented the scene:

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Video of the madness:

RELATED: Duke Riley Prepares For Naval Battle (PHOTOS)

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Comments

[karela]

05:49 PM on 08/14/2009

What a hoot! I love it! We could use more fun in America this year and more working together on things we can agree about. It would be such a good thing to foster things like this with groups of people on the same team for the play acting who are usually on opposite teams politically. I would love to see the Senate do something like this with the parties mixed equally on the teams. I bet a whole lot of people would come out to see something like this. If you let the old guys be the generals at the edges of the battles and the younger ones throwing tomatoes at each other, we might get some laughter back in America. We need some leadership from the House and Senate on this type of thing. They say that after WWII the mood in Washington was completely different because everybody on both sides had been in the war and they respected each other. They all lived in Washington and in the evening after sessions they'd get together over dinner, cigars and drinks and work out reasonable deals. It all changed when people started going home on week-ends to their own states and everybody started spending time just with people in their own party. It hasn't been good for America. More fun and more camaraderie is needed.

[AuntiepoppyCock]

04:41 PM on 08/14/2009

Now this is what I call fun! Duke Riley, what a great idea!!! I bet the kids loved it and what a great way to teach history and art.

[LB203]

02:48 PM on 08/14/2009

IT was so fun and totally kaotic and crazy. Not very hipstery as one of the commenters suggested - more trekkie...the band was great, the sound could have been a lot better for their sake, people were into it. Very theatrical. And FREE..

[glamajamma]

04:22 PM on 08/14/2009

"more trekkie"

No you don't get it, geek is chic.

Would you like a break down from the ironic moustache on the first picture down to the conspicuous but generic tattoos.

[loncowber]

06:05 PM on 08/14/2009

"No you don't get it, geek is chic."
Thank you, Mr. Orwell. Now back to reality...

[PresidentRobertBooth]

02:45 PM on 08/14/2009

I'd like to see a mock sea battle in Central Park.

The doomed crew can be played entirely by bankers, speculators and stock brokers.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

02:55 PM on 08/14/2009

Put 'em each in separate boats, and give the rest of us poor shlubs a single dinghy...

...and three Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

Financed with OUR (cough) bail-out money, of course.

[HotCold]

02:04 PM on 08/14/2009

Excellent - who needs Burning Man when we have Queens?

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

02:02 PM on 08/14/2009

"Navel" (sic) Battle?

Does the winner get a belly button ring?

[marlovian]

01:50 PM on 08/14/2009

Obviously, the tomato blight in the northeast is far worse than we realized.

[Phillup Textfield]

01:19 PM on 08/14/2009

Can hipsters pick a WORSE time in our nation's economic and class history to exhibit this level of self-indulgent whimsy?? What happened to young left-leaning intellectuals actually associating with the underclass?

[glamajamma]

01:33 PM on 08/14/2009

I am so happy to see more comments like this. This upper middle class hipster crap is so tired. These meaningless expressions of self just meld into some huge blob of the same.

[glamajamma]

01:34 PM on 08/14/2009

read some of your other comments, you have been fanned.

[AvidReader19]

01:11 PM on 08/14/2009

What FUN!

[RazeTemple]

01:07 PM on 08/14/2009

Hey that looks fun! What a great way to get people together and at the same time maybe even learn a little more about history. Way to win it Queens!

[Bitsko]

01:05 PM on 08/14/2009

I can see why The Noguchi Museum wasn't invited. They would have kicked arse!

[PresidentRobertBooth]

12:26 PM on 08/14/2009

Naumachia


Just like the great Roman Empire of yore.

[greysilk]

11:39 AM on 08/14/2009

Looks like an excellent night of fun to me - glad they included a zebra!

[PhoenixGSU]

11:34 AM on 08/14/2009

Oddly enough this is what the future will look like if the rethugs get back into power.

[Black Knight]

12:02 PM on 08/14/2009

Except they be ethnic minorities battling for their amusement and not for museum street cred.

[motoGpifupleez]

12:31 PM on 08/14/2009

You actually think the fat white guys would triumph?