Marisa Bellani is the founder and director of Roman Road, a contemporary art gallery located in the East End of London. Established in 2013, the gallery conceives and achieves innovative solo and group shows with a focus on process based art and new developments in photography. In 2013, Marisa joined The Photographers’ Gallery Young Patron Steering committee and has been a member of the Tate Photography Acquisition committee since 2012. The popularity and growing success of her represented artists has seen Roman Road expand its programme to include international pop-up shows and the gallery continues to participate at notable art fairs including START and the inaugural Photo London.
Your secret art venue when you seek peace and quiet
I love to go to the Wallace Collection, you can go there for their amazing 18th century French painting collection or just to have a coffee in a beautiful but not well preserved from the hype place.
The best food experience in an art space
I would strongly recommend Monsieur Bleu at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. It’s a chic brasserie with an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower and the food is amazing; contemporary, fresh and beautifully presented. To complement a stay in Paris, I would definitely recommend a visit!
A museum gift shop that you never leave empty handed
The MOMA gift shop for all the design that they sell there. Also because it is in NY and I like to buy the gifts for my family and friends there. The Tate Modern bookshop is quite special as well and very tempting. They have a very good selection of books especially for photography and video art.
Your museum with a wow-factor
The entrance with the spiral staircase of the Guggenheim museum in NY makes the whole place incredible. It gives a wow-factor to most of the exhibitions there. The John Chamberlain show there was incredible.
Please share with us a special personal memory related to a museum experience
I will always remember a particular evening at Tate Britain; it was one of the first invitations I received after joining the Photography Acquisition Committee in 2012 and I was asked to attend a special reception in one of the grand rooms at the museum. We had dinner on a long table that seated around 100 people, surrounded by many beautiful and enormous 19th century oil paintings; it was a wonderful evening and one that I will not forget!
