A guerilla art dealer with a novel hiding place was shown the door at Frieze London this week. During the fair's invitation-only preview on Wednesday, security escorted London-based artist Svetlana Grishina from the Regent's Park tent after she was reported for illicitly selling contemporary artworks she had smuggled inside her skirts.

The mobile exhibition space, called Petticoat Gallery, was founded by Grishina in 2025 as a self-described femme spin-off of Russian artist Alexander Petrelli's early-1990s Palto, or Overcoat, Gallery concept, which is still active in Moscow. Where Petrelli pins small-format works to the inside of his overcoat, Grishina shows works pinned to the interior of her tiered petticoats, lifting them in a playfully risqué gesture to open the exhibition. Petrelli has given the project his blessing, and Grishina has previously shown her own work with his gallery.

Before security intervened, the artist was offering diminutive works on paper by Kenji Lim at £200 each, watercolours by Berlin-based Maximilian Rödel at £800, and oils on silk by Niovi Kafantari at £600. Grishina noted that small works by Rödel and Kafantari are hard to come by, since their galleries typically show larger canvases. A few fairgoers were tempted, but she did not close a sale before being stopped. An Instagram video of the polite expulsion captured a bystander predicting the footage would go viral.

Grishina took the ejection in her stride, laughing it off while expressing curiosity about the identity of the informer who reported her. She argued that she posed little commercial threat to the fair, and even suggested Frieze might appreciate the entertainment value of the performance. She plans to approach the fair's exhibitor relations team to seek official permission for her portable gallery next year — or to leave the artworks at home. Next up, she is planning a group exhibition to coincide with next year's Art Basel.