Let P be a simple polygon, then the art gallery problem is looking for a minimum set of points (guards) that can see every point in P. We say two points a, b∈ P can see each other if the line segment seg (a, b) is contained in P. We denote by V(P) the family of all minimum guard placements. The Hausdorff distance makes V(P) a metric space and thus a topological space. We show homotopy-universality, that is, for every semi-algebraic set S there is a polygon P such that V(P) is homotopy equivalent to S. Furthermore, for various concrete topological spaces T, we describe instances I of the art gallery problem such that V(I) is homeomorphic to T.