USC alumna named curator of art gallery
Photo courtesy of G2 Gallery
Artistic value · Monika Basse graduated in 2016 with a Master of Arts in curatorial practice and the public sphere. She has worked at multiple institutions, such as the Lois Lambert Gallery at Bergamot Station.
Several months after graduating from USC, Monika Basse found herself in a strange situation.
The G2 Gallery, a photography gallery in Venice Beach, recently hired the USC alumna as its curator.
Though most curators step into their roles after several years of post-grad work experience and generally hold a Ph.D in art, Basse was hired directly out of Roski’s M.A. program in art and curatorial practices in the public sphere. She brings an impressive resume to the job, having worked at Christie’s auction house and LACMA.
Basse is committed to upholding the gallery’s mission of promoting conservation through nature and wildlife photography.
“My aim is to curate stimulating exhibits that engage the community in a dialogue about preserving earth’s varying environments while also reminding visitors of their love of nature,” Basse said.
G2’s mission is to promote conservation through nature and wildlife photography. It donates its proceeds to environmental causes including Audubon California and Greenpeace. Their gift shop sells sustainably-made products and handicrafts from local creators.
Though Basse has only been at G2 for five months, she has already undertaken one ambitious project, an installation called “100 Years of National Parks: The West” that is currently on display. Robert Glenn Ketchum provided additional curatorial support in the installation’s early stages.
The exhibit is the fourth in series commemorating the centennial of the National Parks Service. Previous installments of the series used only one to two rooms of G2’s space, but Basse has decided to honor the diversity and number of national parks in the American West by using all of the gallery’s four rooms.
Many of the 64 paintings in “The West” were printed especially for the exhibit, which features a total of 35 artists. At the gallery’s opening on Oct. 4, the artists met each other for the first time, and Basse said that she felt proud of the group’s diversity.
“Some of them have 30 odd years of experience, and some are just starting out,” Basse said. “It was a great kind of intermingling.”
Next on Basse’s agenda are exhibits focusing on the national parks of Hawaii and Alaska. Though her predecessor planned to include those states in the current installation, Basse felt that the uniqueness of America’s youngest states warranted separate treatment. For now, visitors can see the 11 states of the continental West represented in the present display, which runs until Dec. 24.
Basse said that stepping into the curator role so early in her career has been an exhilarating experience, and she’s enjoying learning the ropes. G2 originally reached out to Roski seeking to hire a PhD fellow, but they were instead directed to Basse, who was floored by the offer.
“Nobody really assumes that they can just do the job that they went to grad school for immediately out of grad school,” she said.“[But then] nobody really grows up dreaming to be a curator.”
Basse’s says that she “very organically” came to realize that art curation was her calling and advised current students to follow their passion, even if it doesn’t have yet a clear career path.
“If you have a passion, you should let that passion grow organically, even if it doesn’t quite make sense. Even if you’re like, ‘That’s not a job,’ it will slowly sort itself out,” Basse said. “That’s the beauty of living in 2016.”