Christian Luczanits inspecting a manuscript together with Khenpo Tsewang Rigzin at Namgyal Monastery, Mustang.

Observing a manuscript at Namgyal Monastery, Mustang; photo Jaroslav Poncar.

Current

Since September 2014 I am David L. Snellgrove Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist Art at the , University of London. Since September 2014, I have been David L. Snellgrove, Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist Art at SOAS, University of London.

From here, I am pursuing my ongoing research on ‘Tibetan Buddhist Monastery Collections Today’, which focuses on monasteries in Ladakh, India, and Mustang, Nepal. The main aim of this project is to provide monasteries with photographic documentation and inventories of their collections. It also assists them with other matters relating to these collections.

In Mustang, I work closely with the Norbusum Foundation, which not only supports my documentation but has also restored the monasteries of Lo Gekar and Gönpa Gang. Documentation of these works is available on the foundation’s website.

Photography

I only started photographing when it became clear that there was ample art-historical information in situ that had not been documented. Consequently, I made field research and photographic documentation a priority. All documentation from the 1990s is now held in the Western Himalayan Archive Vienna (WHAV), University of Vienna, Austria, a photographic archive I helped establish.

Book Design

I have not received any formal education in this area, but I am a visual person. Studying art history certainly influenced me, but I have mostly learned through practice, first when designing my clay sculpture book. I am not sure how this visual strength connects to another, namely the analysis of complex (visual) matters in new ways.

Short Biography

I studied Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, with a focus on art history. There, I completed my PhD under the external supervision of the late Maurizio Taddei, Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli.

Following my PhD, I held research positions at the University of Vienna until 2000, at the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2000 to 2003, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2003/04, and at the Lumbini International Research Institute in 2005/06. I also held visiting professorships at UC Berkeley in 2004/05, at the Free University in Berlin from 2006 to 08, and at Stanford University and UC Berkeley in the first half of 2010.

While teaching in Berlin, I also curated the exhibition "Gandhara – the Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan. Legends, Monasteries and Paradise" at the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland with Michael Jansen and was responsible for its catalogue. Before joining SOAS in September 2014, I had been Senior Curator at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.