BAR sí

A Performace by Rujuta Rao
September 28, 2024


In her participatory installation BAR sí, artist Rujuta Rao invites the audience to experience a menu of artworks across a bar counter. The menu features alcoholic beverages, an edible pairing, artworks, artist books, and printed matter created during her 2024 residency at the Center for Book Arts in New York City. BAR sí, curated by Eva Parra, is a celebration reflecting on Printed Matter St Marks as it concludes, after 6 years of operation in the East Village.

Works on the menu included Rao’s newly launched book On Solitary Viewership, publications made alongside learning about the Goan distilled beverage cashew feni, a wearable book titled Mother, and Wave, a book of printed words infused in a jar of alcohol, among others.

Rujuta Rao was born in Goa, India, and is based in Jersey City, NJ. Rao’s multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, installation, performance, book and sound art, alongside conceptual and functional garments. Her practice is research-led and intensely personal, investigating the fragility and limitations of materials relating to place, family history, and hospitality. Rao received her MFA in interdisciplinary art from Parsons School of Design and BFA in sculpture from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. She is a certified Japanese sake advisor and is presently awaiting her sake sommelier exam.

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