Last Saturday, the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool, Lancashire (United Kingdom) launched a new exhibit, “Doug Fishbone and Friends Adventureland Golf”, featuring 9 holes of miniature golf designed by some of the UK’s greatest artists. The event runs through October 6 – if I understand the way those crazy Brits list their date numbers – and it’s open for the public to stop in and play a round. (In fact, any of you motherland With Leatherians stop in and get pictures, you’ll will get a free shirt.)
But that’s only if you get pictures with the above hole, designed to look like – can you guess? Anyone? That’s right, it’s Adolph Hitler, who is famous for leading Nazi Germany and stapling his testicles to patio furniture. Before you get all offended, though, know that there’s a very good reason behind this artistic choice.
Jake and Dinos Chapman, and Doug Fishbone have created replicas of two dictators for the course. The Chapman’s saluting Adolf Hitler places the powerful image of the Nazi regime within the context of holiday fun and in doing so makes reference to the British wartime spirit of making humour at the fuehrer’s expense. Doug Fishbone has recreated the toppling of the massive Saddam Hussein statue in Firdos Square, Baghdad, in 2003, an image that came to define the Iraqi war.
Nothing says picking on historical villains like making them obstacles in miniature golf. According to the Blackpool Gazette – with the best headline possible – if you get a hole-in-one on Hitler, he raises his arm. If you ace the Saddam Hussein hole, his statue falls over. I think this could be my favorite miniature golf course of all-time. Sorry, Congo River. :(
Although, I would have liked to have seen a more elaborate Hitler hole with Benito Mussolini perhaps biting the Führer’s genitalia. I heard that actually happened and it resulted in Hitler being impotent. Seriously, I learned that in elementary school, when education used to mean something in this country.
(H/T to Fark)
