Tonight!  Looking to break out your toga or, alternatively, are you single and looking to scope out a partially clad, indie crowd?  Read on.

Those About to Die Salute You, a battle on water wielded with baguette swords and watermelon cannon balls by New York’s art dignitaries, will take place on Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 6 pm in a flooded World’s Fair-era reflecting pool in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, just outside of the Queens Museum of Art. Various types of vessels have been designed and constructed by artist provocateur Duke Riley and his collaborators: the galleons, some made of reeds harvested in the park, will be used to stage a citywide battle of the art museums in which representatives from the Queens Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and El Museo del Barrio will battle before a toga-clad crowd of frenzied onlookers. The event is free and open to public. Dress code: Toga. Live music by Hell-Bent Hooker. Beverages will be served.

LOVE.  More information here.

Long night due to a work event, so a really short post– but I was inspired to share this neat article from the New York Daily News about an auction of prisoner art that just took place to support an organization that encourages inmates to create artwork while studying for their GEDs.  Some of the artwork, which I couldn’t find pictures of online, will be exhibited at the Queens Museum of Art in mid-June.

Related to outsider art (or naive art, depending on who you talk to), I wanted to share a super cheap chalk portrait that I recently picked up and had framed.  It’s late 19th/early 20th century with no signature on thick brown paper.  Outside the norm for me to collect, but find it charming– enjoy!