Gary Tartakov (Iowa State University)

submitted: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 11:36:42 CST

Gary Michael Tartakov
Associate Professor of Art & Design
Department of Art & Design
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011   USA

phone: 515-294-9306
FAX:   515-294-9755
email: tart@iastate.edu

DESCRIPTION OF  WORK

I teach history of art and design.  This includes modern Western art,
19th century art, modern Western design, the arts of Asia and Indian art
& design.

My research on India has been into the following areas:

1. Ancient temple arts.  I am particularly interested in the origins of
temple architecture in stone and in the Deccan region with a focus on
the Calukyas of Badami and their contemporaries, and the Rastrakutas,
Nolambas and their contemporaries.  

2. Recent temple arts.  I am developing an interest in the temples of
the last seven centuries all over India.  For Orientalist reasons these
are too understudied, and I think we need to have a fuller set to teach,
if we are to get over 19th century biases.  I have written about temples
of the last two centuries for the forthcoming Dictionary of Art and
think we all ought to know a lot more about what's going on right now.
Yet I have very little information to go on as yet. 

3. Contemporary gallery art.  Since this is an art quite closely related
to the most prestigious and interesting of our own culture it seems the
best way to enter a real discussion of Indian culture as it stands
today.  We had a panel on the topic at the Madison conference this year.
It will eventually become a major topic that all of us will deal with,
if we are to overcome what is otherwise a rather total dismissal of
contemporary Indian culture in the visual arts.  My own focus is in
painting.

4. Orientalism. I am interested in the full subject of how the West has
constructed its vision of ancient and contemporary India.  I've done
work on the vision of traditional temple arts.  I am currently working
on the Western construction of India's Islamic architecture.

5. Navayana or New Buddhist and Dalit imagery.  I am interested in the
full range of art and design imagery used by Dalits and Ambedkar
Buddhists.  By Dalits I am referring to any who would call themselves by
the term and not necessarily the Buddhists who might. 

6. Modern and Contemporary Architecture and Planning.  This is an area
in which I am a neophyte, but my Indian architecture graduate students
have a great interest, and so I am struggling to gain a footing.

Putting the last three together I am going to a conference in Chandigarh
January 6-10, 1995, called "Theatres of Decolonization" where I am giving
a paper on Navayana Buddhist arts as a response to "internal
colonization."