ST. LOUIS — The art and golf worlds are colliding at The Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries this summer with the opening of Golf the Galleries this Friday.
Golf the Galleries is a nine-hole miniature golf course that will take players through obstacle-filled putting greens that combine art and sports.
The nine unique holes are designed by St. Louis area artists, architects and other creatives.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for children 12 and under, but if you're a Sheldon member, tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under.
The installation runs from June 17 to Aug. 28.
For more information and to buy tickets, click here.
The hole designs and creators are as follows:
In celebration of City Museum’s 25-year milestone, the building’s shoe factory legacy, and a post-COVID rejuvenation, the City Museum presents a mini golf hole like none other. A Day at City Museum is built from a variety of juxtaposed materials and objects that a City Museum guest would encounter on a typical visit. Dave Kish is the golf hole designer and builder and a graduate from the Department of Art and Architecture at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Kish has been with the City Museum since 2020. Sponsored by Ted Wight
A Hole Other Whole, by returning designers Laura and Phil Skroska, plays off the phrase “the whole is other than the sum of its parts.” Using images from iconic St. Louis locations including the Scott Joplin House, the Skroskas will create mosaics of abstract patterns that, placed together in a collage, will form an image. Various tetrominos, or geometric shapes composed of four squares, are set as obstacles throughout the challenging golf hole with a recording of Scott Joplin’s Elite Syncopations playing throughout. Laura Skroska is a scenic carpenter, technical director and props master with a background in fine art, and Phil Skroska is an archivist at the Becker Medical Library at Washington University School of Medicine.
LitShop’s Journey Through Space has golfers blasting off into space via a ramp from the tee box. After travelling under a Sailor Moon-themed spaceship, golfers then enter an asteroid field, where they will navigate their way through small domes of space rock. Anime characters stand as obstacles throughout the last fairway, leading to the approach of the hole, located in the bottom of a concave black hole. LitShop pairs literacy with hands-on making and building for girls and gender-expansive youth ages 10-15, offering workshops in reading, writing, building and making through modalities such as design, woodworking, carpentry, printmaking and fiber arts.
Brick Grove by Rob Rumble and Krutie Thakkar depicts a fantastical street corner in St. Louis. The built environment and natural world struggle and collaborate with each other to create a scene of magical discovery. Taking inspiration from the urban prairies of North City, the designers seek to evoke feelings of a wild dance - a rambunctious place of potential. Rob Rumble’s primary skills are in digital design and software development with Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in information. Krutie Thakkar is co-founder of Mushmaus, an artist interchange and idea incubator for installation and performance artists located in the Cherokee neighborhood.
Golfers will follow Bobby Fischer on the road to the 1972 World Chess Championship, from the Candidates Matches to Fischer’s training for the championship at Grossinger’s Resort, in Fischer/Spassky 1972: The Match, its Origin and After Effects by World Chess Hall of Fame. A video includes daily highlights from the match, allowing visitors to experience the excitement of the event. Supplemented by contemporary newspapers and television clips illustrating the impact of the match and the interest it elicited even from people who would not have previously considered themselves chess enthusiasts, this hole features highlights from the collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame, the Fischer Library of Dr. Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield and the Rex Sinquefield collection. Sponsored by World Chess Hall of Fame
Grand Center Arts Academy students return with Music Through the Decades. The hole features a tee area and ending hole built to resemble a vinyl record. Along the way, players encounter an archway of guitars, a spiral ramp and drumstick obstacles. Players enter through beaded curtains, revealing a reflective CD wall, illuminated by the mirrored ball reflecting light across the room. Golfers will enjoy music from over the decades, as performed by the students of Grand Center Arts Academy, and on the wall will be student-made paintings of musicians and bands, highlighting the diversity of interest amongst the school’s students. Sponsored by Dick Shaw
Tim Mulhall and Michael Musgrave-Perkins will direct the students for the golf hole build. Mulhall is in his second year as the Makerspace educator at Grand Center Arts Academy. Musgrave-Perkins is in his fourth year of teaching theatre at Grand Center Arts Academy and is currently the department head.
Artist Sarah Frost found inspiration for her hole, Hole at the Pole, in the enjoyment and wonder her family has found in looking at maps together – from straight-forward, geographic maps, to globes and fanciful, illustrated maps – and the games that spontaneously arose in doing so. Over the course of this hole, golfers play through a giant map, heading north (homeward) from the southernmost part of the world. The player starts in Antarctica – the column in the room is the South Pole – and heads north through Chile. The map contains a variety of features: natural life, built environment, geographic features, historic, cultural and more, and extends continuously from the course onto the walls of the gallery.
Frost’s work has been exhibited in solo and group shows, including at Laumeier Sculpture Park; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; PPOW Gallery in New York; Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and CODA Museum in Appeldorn, Netherlands.
Childhood Revisited by Martha Valenta explores life growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s. Visitors of all ages can build with Tinker Toys or spin on an adult sized sit-and-spin in the quiet area. On the golf green, opponents can attempt to foil each other’s game using a huge Hungry Hungry Hippo. Further down the golf green, players will encounter familiar obstacles, such as an old Fisher-Price xylophone. An oh-so ‘70s/’80s-era couch faces a vintage television placed in the nook, playing either VHS tapes or welcoming visitors to play a game on an original Atari 2600. Another nook features a mailbox where guests may submit answers to a writing prompt using authentic, grade school practice paper from the period as well. Martha Valenta is a gallerist and artist with I Need That Art gallery in Clayton, Missouri. She’s taken part in Artscope’s Wall Ball and The Sheldon’s Golf the Galleries exhibit for the past three years.
Designers Kelsey and Phil Jordan return with Keith’s Skateboard Park, a celebration of the youthful impulse to play, imagine and take risks. Skateboarding is a common “risky” activity that many experience in their youth, but as they grow older, instead appreciate the mastery of professional skateboarding moves at a distance. Keith’s Skateboard Park is meant to showcase re-imagined pieces of art by Keith Haring while creating a playful connection between miniature golf and a skateboard park. Broken skateboards used as a ramp at the start of the hole remind players that it is okay to fail, but when they persevere, they get to have fun and play on!
Together, Phil and Kelsey Jordan are experienced architectural, furniture, construction and graphic designers. Combining their experience with their enthusiasm and love for creating playful solutions to difficult problems results in the creation of spaces with an emphasis on the end user.