The new U-Haul Art Fair is pulling up in Chelsea – The Art Newspaper

A new fair is parking just south of The Armory Show this year. Presented by U-Haul Gallery, the nomadic enterprise staging shows in the back of rented moving trucks, U-Haul Art Fair (5-7 September) will have ten participants parked streetside in Chelsea. Instead of a stand with four white walls, each exhibitor will have a moving van of their own.

The U-Haul Gallery has become a staple at buzzy New York gallery nights. For nearly a year, James Sundquist and Jack Chase have parked U-Haul trucks on the street outside busy galleries and art fairs, thrown open the roll-up door and invited passers-by inside. Along with the art on display in the truck, their performances as renegade art slingers and their satirical social media presence have become an extension of the tongue-in-cheek gallery, using plenty of jargon to poke fun at art world pageantry. The U-Haul Fair will follow that concept, Sundquist and Chase say.

“I love the idea of taking over a street in what is a refined and pretentious area,” Chase says. “The art fair is the ultimate expression of that art world power culture.”

“You’re the same group of people flying on private jets all over the world, fair-hopping to go see each other. They’re like Dead Heads,” Sundquist adds, referencing the tight-knight, touring subculture around the Grateful Dead.

For now, the organisers are keeping the exact location of the fair under wraps, only saying they plan to park the trucks on a street between 10th and 11th avenues and 20th and 30th streets, the area of Chelsea with the highest concentration of galleries. Each exhibitor paid $2,500 in fees to cover truck rental, insurance, building materials and marketing. The fair will take care of driving and parking the trucks, as well as putting up walls and hand-painting signs.

The U-Haul Fair lineup is impressive for such a guerrilla affair. The ten exhibitors include A Hug From The Art World, Nino Mier Gallery, Last Days and Post Times from New York, Hexton Gallery from Aspen, and Mey Gallery and Autobody Autobody from Los Angeles. There are also some less traditional participants, like a partnership between Los Angeles gallery Stowaway and the artist Indiana Hoover and a truck with work from an artist’s collective befittingly dubbed I Made This Up. Sundquist and Chase say they received more than 60 applicants.

Keep on trucking

U-Haul Gallery is not affiliated with the $10.1bn trucking and storage company U-Haul. Though a previous project also called Uhaul Gallery and operating in Brooklyn changed its name in 2019 after receiving legal threats from the company, Sundquist and Chase say they have never heard from a U-Haul representative in any official capacity.

Since May 2024, Sundquist has staged periodical roving exhibitions in moving trucks. He was driven to take the unconventional route by the exhausting juggle of time, space and money of putting on an art show in New York. Sundquist worked as a fabricator and shop steward for the artist Tom Sachs, and only recently left amid plans to move to Rhode Island after getting married in June (they parked a U-Haul Gallery show outside his wedding reception venue).

“I was trying to have my own art practice outside of work,” Sundquist says. “But even trying to find studio space and getting burned on some spaces, I was getting super burnt out with it and getting just depressed about making art and the art world in general.”

U-Haul Gallery’s low overhead and flexibility gave him more freedom to experiment and work with other artists, often setting up shop and parking in front of gallery openings. He teamed up with Chase in late 2024, when they staged the second edition of The Show of Stolen Goods, first put on by the British artist Victoria Gill. In a U-Haul truck parked outside Hauser & Wirth on West 22nd Street, the trio displayed donated objects taken from workplaces, like a sardine tin from Cervo’s in Dimes Square, a vinyl record and a pair of Dior heels.

Since that first show together, Chase and Sundquist have found allies throughout the art world. They say Elizabeth Dee, the founder of the Independent Art Fair, was supportive of U-Haul Gallery when it parked outside her fair. Jonny Tanna, the co-founder of the Minor Attractions fair in London, has invited them to take part in the event’s next edition in October.

Others have been less enthusiastic. U-Haul Gallery has been asked to leave from outside fairs in New York and Los Angeles, including by Frieze, which has often sent the same employee to break the news.

“We’re kind of frenemies, because she’s kicked us out of multiple Friezes now,” Sundquist says.

“She’s super sweet. But you can tell she’s just at the whims of this institutional apparatus,” Chase adds. “We told her we’d see her in London.”

• U-Haul Fair, 5-7 September, location TBD, Chelsea, New York