In a unique collision of recreation and art, the Elmhurst Art Museum has commissioned a two-part miniature golf course of playable works of art by local and national artists. This course is a reimagining of the wildly popular 1988 exhibition Par Excellence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A public call for proposals for area artists, designers, and architects attracted diverse artists who designed holes of varying difficulty, including the museum’s Teen Art Council. The custom-built playable miniature golf course will be split into two exhibits: The Front 9 (Summer) and The Back 9 (Fall). Designed to use the museum’s galleries with COVID protocols, the two 9-hole courses promise an unusual twist on a familiar pastime. From social justice to the occult, the course includes a surprisingly varied collection of themes and forms, including a fortune-telling hole that has the power to dramatically change scores as well as a hole that challenges players with an optical illusion.

Front-9 Artists: Julie Cowan, Current Projects, Andrea Jablonski & Stolatis Inc., Annalee Koehn, Latent Design, Jesse Meredith, Gautam Rao, Robin Schwartzman & Tom Loftus (aka A Couple of Putts), and the museum’s Teen Art Council.

The course opens July 7 with advanced Tee Time bookings starting June 1.

Advanced registration is available for private event rentals of the fully playable mini-golf course. This is the perfect setting for kids’ birthday parties, company retreats, weddings, and more. For a limited time private rentals receive a $50 gift card for Brewpoint Coffee. Learn more here and send inquiries to events@elmhurstartmuseum.org

The exhibit will pay homage to Par Excellence (1988) conceived by Chicago artist Mike O’Brien with a special display of ephemera, newspaper clippings, photos, and a recreated hole by designer Annalee Koehn. The original exhibit sold out daily and found its way to the pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, CNN, and the Chicago Tribune among others. The course went on tour to downstate Illinois before returning to Chicago as a rebranded commercial miniature golf course called ArtGolf.

Artist-designed golf courses are now a popular addition to many Midwest museums such as the Walker Art Center, The Sheldon, and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, but Par Excellence is widely believed to be the first.

Coming Soon:

Par Excellence Redux: The Back 9: October 13, 2021 - January 2, 2022

Par Excellence Redux is curated by Colossal’s founder & editor-in-chief Christopher Jobson.

Media Partner: Colossal

Sponsored by: American Gardens, Bartlett Tree Experts, Brewpoint Coffee, Community Bank of Elmhurst, W.S. Darley & Co, DIT Workshops, Dugan & Lopatka, Elmhurst Artists’ Guild, Elmhurst Park District, Elmhurst University, Howard & Howard, Lakeside Bank, Kilwins, Maxine, Pints, Quality Home Service, Reconciled Solutions, Schwartz Injury Law, Superior Ambulance Service, TCF Bank, Wangler and Company, and the Museum’s Development and Programming Committees.