On the VIP preview day for Frieze London, near the entrance to Regent’s Park, a dapper young man in a wide-lapeled brown tweed suit was selling T-shirts from a folding table set beside a very conspicuous box truck. He was also selling art.
“We are here to reverse what the Beatles did in 1964,” Jack Chase, one of the two enterprising dealers behind U-Haul Gallery, told me when asked what brought the guerrilla-style gallery to London’s Frieze Week.
Chase and his partner, James Sundquist, have made a name for themselves this year by parking their rental truck—back in the U.S. it’s a U-Haul, but in London the truck was branded CVS—outside art fairs and mega-galleries, giving artists who prefer not to get chewed up by the traditional gallery system a chance to shine.
Related Articles
How William Monk and Pace Are Betting on the Slow Burn at Frieze London
Welcome to Frieze London, the Art Market’s Latest Checkup
This fall, during Armory Week in New York, Sundquist and Chase launched their own fair. A dozen U-Hauls lined both sides of 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea. Galleries like Post Times, A Hug From the Art World, and Nino Mier all sold art out of the backs of $19.99-a-day box trucks. Gas-powered generators on either side supplied electricity for lights and sound systems, and—thanks to a little hustle, a lot of elbow grease, and more than a few sheets of plywood—the interiors of each truck were outfitted with the classic white walls of a traditional gallery.
Here in London, Sundquist and Chase are on their own—and as nimble as ever. Inside their truck, a giant image of Tina Turner stretched across the ceiling, arms open, mid–“Nutbush,” ready to explode. On the floor sat a mixed-media work titled O-14 (LPSVCYDH) (2025–present), composed of repeated images of the philosopher and logician Kurt Gödel’s book On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems. Both works are by the artist Vladimir Umanetz, whose practice hinges on audience interaction. Want to step on it? Feel free. Really dig your heels in—it’s part of the work.
In the park itself, Sundquist—wearing camo pants and a blue blazer—held a large piece of cardboard spray-painted in black with the words Bootleg Frieze Merch Here and an arrow pointing toward the truck, where Chase was also selling T-shirts and a poster Umanetza created to accompany the exhibition.
But the visit to Regent’s Park didn’t last long. They arrived around 12:30 p.m., Chase told me, and soon after, park attendants began passing by to say they had to move. The first few warnings were shrugged off—until one attendant offered to call the police and have the dealers escorted away. By 4 p.m., they’d hit the road.
Getting a ticket, of course, wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world. During the U-Haul Art Fair, they made good use of the few parking tickets the NYPD issued—each one was framed and sold for the same price as the fine.
One benefit of the U-Haul model is its agility. Hours later, the truck was parked outside the London outpost of Thaddaeus Ropac, which was hosting a mezcal-and-coffee party for Tom Sachs. On the sidewalk, guests sipped boozy espresso shots, smoked cigarettes, and crowded around the U-Haul table.
“This is sick,” a more-than-tipsy man told the rebel dealers. “Have you ever thought about taking it to the air? I have a Gulfstream—I just need 30 days’ notice to get it ready.”
Chase looked at Sundquist. They both smiled. “Gulfstream Gallery. That’s not a bad idea.”