Encounter With A Gallery Lecturer
Ben Street wears so many different hats that it is difficult to list all of them. A Gallery educator/lecturer (The National Gallery, MoMA, Guggenheim NY, National Portrait Gallery, Hayward Gallery), a writer (Art Review, Artnet, Triple Canopy, Art21, Saatchi Online; catalogue essays for galleries and museums in Vienna, Antwerp, Dublin), a freelance curator (Josh Lilley Gallery), a course leader (Saatchi Gallery: A Crash Course in Contemporary Art; Art History UK: Who's Afraid of Contemporary Art?; educational trips for Art History Abroad and John Hall Venice), an art fair co-director (Sluice). When we first met at the National Gallery, he was surrounded by a huge group of followers eager to learn about the old master painting he was discussing. A former A level teacher in Art History, he is now working freelance. You can follow what he is up to on his blog.
From My City will launch in May a series of lectures with Ben at the National Portrait Gallery looking at a few portraits per theme starting with Writers and Poets and followed by Musicians and Composers.
Below are his answers to our four questions.
What brought you to London?
I drifted down after university 11 years ago, and have been here on and off (with breaks in Italy in America) ever since.
What is the last exhibition, film or show that inspired you and why?
Alighiero Boetti at Tate Modern, which was playful and romantic and elegant and rambunctious all at the same time. Or the new Muppets film, for exactly the same reasons.
If you had to leave London, what aspects of the city would you miss the most ?
Night buses, free art, the parks.
Could you recommend some of your favourite places in London?
Gaby's Deli (30 Charing Cross Road)
the Oxfam bookshop on Marylebone Road
Room 62 in the National Gallery.....