Blurring the boundaries between architecture, social space, and sculpture, a new bar has arrived on the scene in Rome. Bar Far reimagines a traditional gallery, which happens to be the new location of Villa Lontana, into a visually mesmerizing meeting spot. The name of the show and temporary libations pop-up is a play on the name of Villa Lontana itself, which translates to “faraway villa,” and it’s the latest from artists Clementine Keith-Roach and Christopher Page.
From the neon sign on the facade to tables held up by legs and sconces in the form of hands holding candles, the exhibition celebrates the legacy of illustrious art bars like Cabaret Voltaire—the birthplace of Dada in Zurich—or the storied 18th-century Caffè Greco in Rome, where the likes of Giorgio di Chirico and numerous literary greats would hang out. Bar Far is also an extension of Keith-Roach and Page’s previous collaborations, including an art bar installation called Bar Moi.
Keith-Roach is known for her sculpted figurative forms, often using plaster and terracotta to create reliefs and life-size body parts that intertwine, twist, and merge with large vessels redolent of ancient pots. Feet, hands, and other anatomical parts or artifacts are sometimes displayed as if they have been recently excavated from the earth, arranged on shelves or in plastic.
In Bar Far, Keith-Roach hybridizes her anatomical sculptures into tables, benches, and frames. Merging with the architecture, arms and legs bend around corners and lead viewers toward a rear arcade filled with moody, red-orange paintings by Page. Glowing from beyond a series of arches, echoing Renaissance arcades, his skies give the impression that the room floats in the air, or that someone could simply step out into the atmosphere.
In his practice, Page’s trompe l’œil works often serve as portals, sometimes framed like windows or looking uncannily like mirrors reflecting sunlit corners. In Bar Far, these luminous, otherworldly thresholds add a metaphysical—even paradoxical—layer to the interior. “Echoes of ancient Roman and Baroque lavishness mingle with contemporary architectural austerity and flashes of colour that seem to come from the future,” the gallery says. “The effect is an environment that is at once church and tomb, prophecy and ruin, heaven and hell.”
Bar Far continues through March 14 in Rome. Find more on the gallery’s website.
“A Storm is Blowing from Heaven” (2025), plaster, acrylic, and wood, 72 x 75 x 12 centimeters
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