BARELY FAIR is a 1:12 scale international art fair operated by the Julius Caesar (JC) artist collective. The invitational fair presents a tiny peek inside the programming of contemporary art galleries, project spaces, and curatorial projects during Art Week in Chicago. Exhibitors present works inside 20 x 2o inch booths arranged in the format of a standard art fair.
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Founded in 2008, JC has had an ever-evolving group of artists act at co-directors. When BARELY FAIR was founded in 2018, they were Josh Dihle, Tony Lewis, Roland Miller and Kate Sierzputowski. They are at present Tony Lewis, Roland Miller, and Kate Sierzputowski.
In 2018, Chicago EXPO was the beginning of the city's fall season. While brainstorming for a season opener at the artist-run project space for fall of 2019, a joke turned into an undertaking.​
All 4 co-directors were familiar with art fairs having collectively experienced all aspects of the art fair aparratus, and were not only aware of the role art fairs play in shaping the contemporary art world, but also the challenges participation poses. The joke, "imagine a miniature art fair," quickly led to the collective imagining BARELY FAIR as a conceptual artwork to open the fall 2019 season. The work would be a sculptural presentation of a miniature art fair, designed and fabricated to mimic 20 x 20 ft. booths at 1:12 scale.
The booths were conceived as 20 x 20 in boxes and arranged in rows just like a traditional art fair. Uniform in scale the booths would provide an egalitarian presentation of galleries to share their artists. The miniature scale lowered cost of participation by reducing shipping costs, and the collective provided installation and documentation to the galleries, enabling participation without traveling. The goal was to both model a system influence and transform it by creating access. That first year booth fees were $50.
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The summer preceding the fair's opening, Josh Dihle and Roland Miller built 4 tables and 24 booths in the studio wood shop of Chicago Imagist Jim Lutes. Constructed from hardwood, pine and MDF, the tables and booths then painted and brought to JC's project space. The tables and booths were divided between JC's duel 14 x 14 ft. exhibition spaces, where 4 ft aisles would surround the peninsulas jutting into the space. LED lights were fixed to rails and hung from the ceiling, and the fair was ready for install.
The thing I think we most underestimated was the underpinnings of such an endeavor. Designing and making the booths, tables and lights was certainly time consuming, and truthfully, physically grueling at a certain point. But the emails. The sheer data collection involved was beyond anything we imagined. It felt like scale made the endeavor cheaper, but the volume of information was not any less; it was 24 group shows.
There is something about the miniature that engenders positivity. Local artists (Mini Dini and **) volunteered to make miniature food for the event. Jason Pickleman, whose JNL Design firm did work for EXPO's branding, offered to design a logo and website. A reporter for the NYTimes wanted to write an article about the fair before it even opened, and WBEZ wanted to talk to us, too. While Josh and I were working in sweating to death on those booths I wasn't sure anyone would even come to the opening, but there was a lot of excitement before it even opened. And then during the fair, people were just as excited. People were saying please reach out to us to take the fair here and there. "Come to Tokyo," or "Come to Houston," people just seemed to love it. I'd never been part of an exhibition where the overwhelming sentiment was joy. That's not a common emotion in the art world.
BARELY FAIR was an immediate success, but what to do next was not clear. The fair had been very expensive for the small collective, using up most of the annual budget on one exhibition. It was obvious the booth fees would have to rise, but while the small size made expenses for participants low, it also ceiling on fees. Even at scale, the financial realities of art fairs are difficult. The conversations and plotting continued, but plans for what could come next were sidelined when the pandemic hit.
During the pandemic, exhibitions were already difficult enough, but JC would lose their project space as a result of the pandemic real estate speculation, and the idea of planning an event with so many moving pieces, international travel and logistics seemed impossible; and the entire art world seemed in flux. The art fair calendar was changing rapidly, and nobody seemed to be sure of anything. Finally EXPO committed to reopening for spring of 2022. And in a moment of serendipity, co-director Josh Dihle and his wife Abby would be just ready to open an arts and event venue on Chicago's north side.