Was it (a.) George Michael talking about the best place to meet people or (b.) artist Jay Rechsteiner talking about his recent art exhibition on display in the toilets of a London pub? If you chose (b.) Jay Rechsteiner - congratulations! You deserve a big pat on the back (with something heavy).

If you told Rechsteiner that his art is going down the toilet, he'd most likely grin. In January, the Swiss-born artist decided to implement an art exhibition in the ladies toilet of Filthy McNasty's - an east-central London pub. Entitled The Washroom Projects, Rechsteiner described the event as "a unique cross-arts performance project that brings dance, music, live art, fine arts and spoken word to the most unusual yet most familiar of locations: the public toilet".

"The aim of TWP is to encroach into the accepted art world by turning washrooms into performance and exhibition arenas," he says on his website (www.jayrechsteiner.com). "The art and performances created in the TWP can be touched, smelt and felt by anyone and is artistically accessible to the public."

While Rechsteiner's choice of venue may be a little unusual, take a look around and you'll see that art has - for a while now - been doing a runner. It's hitching its way out of galleries and launching itself on to everything from traffic signal boxes in Brisbane to parks in New York City. But toilets?

Part of me is enthralled and amused by this "art in the loo" idea. As children, art was usually a touchy-feely, joyful, unsophisticated act of expression. Art was the macaroni necklace we made in pre-school and the crayon stick figure drawing - complete with spiky hair - we did of our mothers. (Which succeeded in making our mums look thin, fond of purple triangular dresses and recent recipients of electric shock therapy.) When did we all get so serious?

Should artists follow the lead of Christo and aim high? Christo is the famed Christo Javacheff, a Bulgarian-born, New York artist who has a penchant for wrapping up the world's most famous buildings and landscapes in fabric.

In February Christo and his wife and collaborator, Jean-Claude, turned their gift-wrapping skills on New York's Central Park. On 12th February, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled The Gates - 7,500 free-standing, 4.8 metre orange vinyl gates that support fabric banners. The effect? From the roof of New York City's Metropolitan Museum the view has been described as a long, billowy saffron ribbon meandering through Central Park.

The temporary project attracted more than 200,000 people on its opening day and was expected to draw more than three million visitors to the Big Apple. A blessing for the city during its usually slow winter season. Understandably, the most common question Christo is asked is why? What's it for?

"It's for nothing. It's only a work of art. Nothing more," he says on his official website. He goes on to explain why his art installations are always so short. The Gates, for example, were dismantled after 16 days. "Their short life-spans create a preciousness and an urgency, encouraging us to bear witness and drink in the art as much as we can, while we can, all the while knowing it may well be gone the next time we visit the site," he says. "Our memories of this experience are how the artwork changes us - perhaps the most powerful force of art, that the changes made are not in the site, but in us."