In the Trastevere district in Rome, Villa Lontana invites patrons to come in for a cocktail within an immersive work of art. Open until March 14, Bar Far is a dreamlike space concocted by two British artists, sculptor Clementine Keith-Roach and painter Christopher Page. It is at once a fully functioning drinking establishment and an art installation that is deliberately disorienting to inhabit, an effect surely only enhanced by the intoxicating elixirs it serves.

Villa Lontana is a nonprofit contemporary art space founded in 2018, whose mission is to connect ancient history with modern experimental practices. Past projects have included presentations of work by historical artists such as Nancy Holt, Robert Rauschenberg, and Marcel Broodthaers, as well as collaborations with current artists working across the mediums of sculpture, film, and sound. The project grew out of the archaeological collection of the Santarelli Foundation and has produced exhibitions, publications, and screenings.

With Bar Far, which was designed by local architects Studio Strato, Villa Lontana is activating Rome’s layered history by turning an unassuming interior into a portal to the city’s ancient past. Plaster casts of human anatomy recalling classical statuary prop up furniture and serve as candelabras. The fragmented body parts are like ghostly visions of those who came before us. We know so little about these people, yet they are foundational to so many of the structures—physical and societal—that we still rely on. Both supportive and decorative, disembodied hands grip arms and breasts, truncated torsos float out from walls, and anonymous limbs behave in a manner indistinguishable from bricks, ducts, chains, and pipes.

The illusory effect is enhanced by Page’s wall paintings, which transform flat walls into trompe l’oeil arcades and windows that glow a transfixing red. Stepping through the archways would surely transport visitors to another dimension, but whether they are gates to heaven or hell remains unknown.

The artists were inspired by local ruins and notorious countercultural establishments such as Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire, the birthplace of Dadaism, and Rome’s Caffè Greco, a favourite haunt of painter Giorgio de Chirico. Such debaucherous dens of iniquity have been safe havens for the misfits and outsiders who are later regarded as the most avant-garde members of their generation.

Though it is in conversation with the past, Bar Far feels more like a vision of the future than a relic of history. While it has a hallucinatory feel, it’s a real space inhabited by living bodies who provoke new ideas with each encounter. Bar Far raises a glass to unconventional gathering spaces that make room for risk and experimentation—and reminds us that the night has only just begun.

Located at Via Garibaldi 68-69, Rome, Bar Far is open until March 14, 2026, Wednesday to Saturday, 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., or by appointment.

Photographs by Jasper Fry.

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