Shop windows can be such staid affairs. Take my local newsagent's, for instance. Its huge single pane of glass has on it a number of fading posters for events that happened yonks ago, a cobweb (in the top left corner, on the inside) and a postcard-holder hanging up, inserted into which are four postcards advertising various local services - 'dog walker', 'babysitter', 'plumber' and someone offering "discreet" massages.
So imagine my excitement when I heard about what they've done with the shop windows at Selfridges on Oxford Street.
The famous department store has given them over to
The Museum of Everything from now until the end of October.
What's The Museum of Everything?" you might well ask. Well, it's pretty much what it says it is. Everything. In a museum.
But it's not quite everything (that would need many more shop windows) and it's not your average museum.
The Museum of Everything has been around since 2009, creating quite a stir, by all accounts. The display at Selfridges is called
Exhibition #4 and, according to its organisers, includes "two hundred drawings, paintings and sculptures by international contemporary artists for whom creation is not just art, it is language." Sounds intriguing.
In fact, the work on display at Selfridges is by untrained artists, many with disabilities. And all of them are having their work displayed for the very first time.
Apparently you'll be able to see "oven-baked cameras", as well as "the vast flying cities of Hans-Jorg Georgi."
The fascinating-sounding exhibition has taken over more than 15,000 square feet of Selfridges, filling the Ultralonge exhibition hall on the lower ground floor, as well as all of the window space along Oxford Street and Orchard Street.
Besides the displays, there is also a Shop of Everything selling custom goods, the proceeds of which go towards the continuance of the museum and the artists who contribute.
So if The Museum of Everything has a Shop of Everything, there must surely be a Cafe of Everything too, right? Right. Although the shop and cafe don't actually sell everything, they should sell
enough to keep you happy.
The exhibition runs until 25th October, so hurry along before Selfridges' windows are returned to their normal state.
Top image: Alan Constable
Middle: Uwe Breckner
Bottom: Jean Wilson
You can see all three items at The Museum of Everything's Exhibition #4 at Selfridges.
