{"id":7349,"date":"1996-12-21T16:10:05","date_gmt":"1996-12-21T21:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=7349"},"modified":"2017-09-06T13:44:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T17:44:12","slug":"artist-christopher-frost-88","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y1996\/winter96\/departments\/class-notes\/alumni-profiles\/artist-christopher-frost-88\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Christopher Frost &#8217;88 Scores a Birdie"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 154px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/abacus.bates.edu\/pubs\/mag\/96-Winter\/frost.photo.jpg\" width=\"144\" height=\"205\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A visitor putts out of trouble on the Christopher Frost-designed miniature golf hole, part of an exhibition at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts, last year.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Miniature golf went highbrow last year at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Instead of windmills and loop-the-loops, this putt-putt course &#8212; winding throughout the museum exhibition space &#8212; featured contemporary installations by twenty-four regional artists, including Christopher Frost &#8217;88.The exhibition, titled Strokes of Genius, was hands-on art: visitors could play the course, guided by a score card that described each hole and admonished players to &#8220;play gently and let faster players play through.&#8221; Each hole was designed by a different artist or artists. Each hole had a name, such as treacherous number five, dubbed &#8220;Twilight Zone,&#8221; an eerie night scene complete with spooky trees, bouncing laser lights, and mysterious glowing eyes. The more serious ninth hole, &#8220;Race Matters,&#8221; examined race relations in America with an old golf photograph of a father, his friends, and their African American caddies.<\/p>\n<p>Frost designed the thirteenth hole (pictured), called &#8220;Birdies.&#8221; Players had to roll their ball through a cut-out image of a tree in a wall. The fairway was dotted with tree stumps, atop of which were metal cages filled with wax figures of small woodland animals. &#8220;All the images suggested an indictment of the environmental impacts of golf courses,&#8221; said Michael Sockol, the museum&#8217;s public relations director.<\/p>\n<p>The DeCordova exhibition was a way of introducing contemporary art to the public by employing a very familiar medium. &#8220;Miniature golf modified a complicated, often exclusionary sport and made it easier for more people to enjoy,&#8221; said Sockol. &#8220;Museums have discovered that the same principle applies to contemporary art. An artist-designed miniature golf course provides an intriguing environment to encourage all audiences to experience contemporary art.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Miniature golf went highbrow last year at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":7343,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-7349","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7349"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13879,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7349\/revisions\/13879"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}