U-Haul Art Fair — 60 Inch Center

Over the last three days an entourage of U-Hauls filled with artworks lined a city block in the gallery-laden neighborhood of Chelsea, Manhattan. U-Haul Art Fair is the largest of U-Haul Gallery’s street interventions and the first to collaborate with other galleries. Described by directors James Sundquist and Jack Chase as “temporary architecture”, the project follows a long history of mobile exhibitions that have attempted to circumvent the conditions that prevent artists’ access to art markets and the public (It is no conscience that this event took place within a mile of The Armory Show.) A feat of herculean coordination, the fair involved pulling U-Hauls from all five boroughs (12 trucks in total) and outfitting them with 100 white-washed boards, gallery lighting, and signage. The final result was a delight: a row of open trucks lining either side of 22nd street as the DIA sign perched above them.

*Seductionof DMV Proctor,* Annabelle Parrish, Mey Gallery

*Post Times,* Bruce Tapola and Melba Price

Many of the works celebrated a tongue and cheek sensibility, including Mey Gallery’s Lynch-inspired exhibition Mulholland Drive! Mulholland, Drive!, Indiana Hoovers and Stowaway’s show of decadent paintings We Sell Bananas, and Lucy Black’s Landline--a plush cartoonishly suspended telephone receiver. Last Days Gallery featured Nothing to See Here a solo exhibition by artist James Greco, a body of work that combines psychedelia with bold confident brush strokes (The space also included his studio companion a little white dog named Basil.)

A lowbrow aesthetic evocative of the Mission School of the 90s abounded - a nostalgia that feels less and less nostalgic in our economic and political climate. This was perhaps most pointedly demonstrated in two projects: Bruce Tapola and Melba Price’s Post Times and the Brooklyn based artist collective Quantum Academy. In Post Times, Tapola and Price collaborated to create diminutive paintings then presented them clustered together on a shelf running the interior of their truck, creating a kaleidoscope of small videttes that visitors could buy for $250 each. Across the street, Quantum Academy created an interactive installation, including wooden constructed speakers playing music on either side of the truck entrance, a clothing bin of thrifted and then silk-screened t-shirts for sale and a weathered newsstand re-appropriated to hold a newspaper created by the collective—all of which felt like a youthful play with the visual culture of urban living.

What made the U-Haul Fair ultimately successful is its approachably: works were priced well below those in the surrounding galleries with even more affordable prints, clothing and merchandise available. The art was compelling and fun and most importantly the crowds showed up creating an atmosphere of conversation and excitement. The concept of the mobile, temporary gallery is not a new one, but it doesn’t have to be. This was an enormous undertaking, a labor of love that brought attention to artists that would otherwise not have interactions with Chelsea audiences. Let’s hope we get to see another U-Haul Fair next year.