- Duke Riley
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A replica of the Turtle (submarine) not made by Riley, at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, UK 
A naumachia held in the Civic Arena of Milan in 1807Duke Riley is an American artist.
Riley earned a BFA in painting form the Rhode Island School of Design, and a MFA in Sculpture from the Pratt Institute. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is noted for a body of work incorporating the seafarer's craft with nautical history, as well as the host of a legendary series of illegal clambakes on the Brooklyn waterfront for the New York artistic community. Riley told the Village Voice that he has "always been interested in the space where water meets land in the urban landscape." [1]
One of Riley's projects entailed a bar constructed from found objects in the concrete pilings that supported the humming Belt Parkway. Riley told a reporter for the New York Times that he charged for the drinks so that he was violating New York law by selling alcohol without a license as well as trespassing on federal property.[2]
In 2007, Riley launched a replica of the Revolutionary War era Turtle, a small wooden submarine designed to enable American patriots to sink British Navy ships by attaching mines to the hulls. He and two companions who had helped him construct the wooden submarine were arrested by the New York City police when they came within 200 feet of the Queen Mary 2, without authorization, at New York City's Red Hook Brooklyn cruise ship terminal.[3] Jesse Bushnell, one of the men arrested with Riley, is a descendant of David Bushnell, the inventor of the Turtle.[4]
In 2009 he constructed four ships for the purpose of staging a Naumachia, a Roman-style gladiatorial sea battle staged for an audience. Riley's Naumachia, entitled, Those About to Die Salute You, was staged at the Queens Museum of Art in a reflecting pool left over from the 1964 World's Fair that was filled with 70,000 gallons of water for the occasion.[5] Since the weapons were baguette and tomatoes, and the audience as well as the warriors dressed in period costume, Artnet described the event as something between a Toga party and fraternity food fight.[6] Riley constructed ships from four different historical periods, including a model of his nemesis, the Queen Mary 2.[5] The ships were crewed by staff from four New York City Museums, the Queens Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and El Museo del Barrio of Manhattan. Although the ships sank rapidly, Riley told the New York Times that he considered the work of art a success since no one was killed, drowned, injured or arrested.[5]
References
- ^ Life of Riley, Silke Tudor, May 23rd 2006, Village Voice
- ^ When Making Art Becomes a Night at the Beach Randy Kennedy, June 26, 2006, New York Times
- ^ "Makeshift submarine found in East River". August 3, 2007. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5537231.
- ^ Egg-head skipper shore isn't upset Jotham Sederstrom and Christina Boyle, New York Daily News
- ^ a b c In Queens, a Battle on the Low Seas, and May the Best Artist Win New York Times, Libby Nelson, Aug. 14, 2009
- ^ Artnet, Duke Riley's Insane Triumph Jerry Saltz
External links
Categories:- American artists
- Living people
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