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Gray Wielebinski takes over The Selfridges Art Block

Words: Georgia Graham

Gray Wielebinski
takes over The Selfridges Art Block

Words: Georgia Graham

The toilets probably aren’t top of your list when you’re planning a visit to Selfridges London. Gray Wielebinski is here to change that. A Texan artist based in London, he explores themes of desire, mythmaking, gender and sexuality in his work. These topics collide in his sinister and mysterious new work, ‘Exhibition’, a sculpture based on a public toilet, which is on display at The Art Block in Selfridges London on G. Comprising a large central piece and a set of two ornate vanity screens that flank the entrance doors, Gray’s sculpture is equal parts imposing and alluring.

Image: Roxy Lee

“My installation plays with the history of the department store bathroom as a place designed to sanitize women’s existence in public, replacing the invocation of sex work with the respectable, even utopic idea of autonomy via consumer culture.”

Gray Wielebinski

“My installation plays with the history of the department store bathroom as a place designed to sanitize women’s existence in public, replacing the invocation of sex work with the respectable, even utopic idea of autonomy via consumer culture.”

Gray Wielebinski
Image: Roxy Lee

The old-fashioned design of the sculpture takes us back to a time when women’s access to public toilets was limited. It also reminds us that Selfridges was the first department store in Britain to open public toilets for women: a historic milestone in the early feminist movement. Gray’s work also references the masculine history of these spaces, which are frequently used as a cruising site for gay hook-ups. More recently, the toilet has been the subject of transphobic “bathroom panics”, fuelled by the right-wing media. Once again, this seemingly innocuous public space has become a charged political symbol.

In ‘Exhibition’, the monumental design and barbed-iron details are designed to provoke mixed feelings – it’s majestic yet sinister, seedy and serene. It asks us to question our relationship to these spaces; to consider what it means to be private in a public place.

 

Head to The Art Block at Selfridges London to experience Gray’s work in person, on show until October 2023.

About The Art Block

The Art Block is our dedicated public art space, located behind the Concierge desk on G at Selfridges London. From the intriguing to the divisive, The Art Block has hosted pieces by the likes of Holly Hendry, Matthew Darbyshire and William Darrell. The 2023 Art Block Commission is programmed by not-for-profit art organisation Bold Tendencies. 

Images: Andrew Meredith

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