Education

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2009
M.A., Mongolian University of Arts and Culture, 1995
B.A., Mongolian University of Arts and Culture, 1993

About

Dr. Tsultem is a scholar of Mongolian art and culture whose research focuses mainly on Buddhist art and architecture and contemporary Asian art. Dr. Tsultem received her Ph.D. in East Asian and Himalayan art history from University of California, Berkeley, where she also taught and served as co-chair of the Mongolia Initiative Program at the Institute of East Asian Studies. She also taught at National University of Mongolia, Yonsei University in South Korea, and University of Iceland. She is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships, which include awards by, among others, Institute of Arts and Humanities at IUPUI (IAHI) (2020), by Library of Congress (2013) and American Council of Learned Societies (2014-2016). Dr. Tsultem’s research and publications include topics on ancient stone monuments in Mongolian steppes, a thirteenth-century Chinggis Khan’s portrait at National Palace Museum in Taiwan, a nineteenth-century mobile monastery Urga (Ikh Khüree), art of 1960s in Mongolia and contemporary Asian artists’ relationship to their art traditions. Dr. Tsultem has had a long curatorial career exhibiting Mongolian art internationally since 1997. She is an active scholar with six books published in Mongolia, in addition to her monograph, A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia, published in December 2020 from Hawaii University Press.

Selected Publications

Books

  • A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia. (Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, December 2020).
  • Primary Documents of Mongolian Art Associations. in Mongolian. (Ulaanbaatar: BCI Publishing, 2018).
  • Selected Papers On Themes of Mongolian Art History, 1993-2018. in Mongolian. (Ulaanbaatar: Admon Print, 2018).
  • Ikh Khüree and the Later Buddhist Art of Mongolia. in Mongolian. (Ulaanbaatar: BCI Publishing, 2016). 

Articles, Edited Volumes and Book Chapters

  • Uranchimeg Tsultemin ed., Buddhist Art of Mongolia: Cross-Cultural Connections, Discoveries and Interpretations. Special Issue. Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, Special Issue. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies (online edition) and Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 2019 (print edition).
  • “Internal Regulations of Gandan Monastery” in Vesna Wallace ed., Sources of Mongolian Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), Ch. 21, pp. 436-450.
  • “Carving and Sculpture” in Haruhiko Fujita ed., Encyclopedia of Asian Design, vol. 2, “Mongolia” section. (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019), pp. 488-491.
  • “Mugi’s Self-Portrait and Maternal Bodies in Post-Socialist Mongolia.” Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture. Oxford, UK: Routledge, Vol. 33, issue 1, January 2019, pp. 79-104.
  • “A Case of Allegoresis: A Buddhist Painter and His Patron in Mongolia” Artibus Asiae, Zürich: Museum Rietberg, Switzerland, Vol.78, Issue 1 (2018), pp. 61-94.
  • “Mongolian Art and the Dilemma of Himalayan Affiliation” Journal of South Asian Studies, Taylor&Francis: British Association of South Asian Studies, Vol. 34, no 2, December, 2018: 137-153.
  • “Political Ecology in Baatarzorig’s Art: Mongolia Is in Business” in Hermione Spriggs and Rebecca Empson eds., Five Heads (Tavan Tolgoi): Art, Anthropology and Mongol Futurism (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2018), pp. 105-119.
  • “Tradition and Transition: Mongolian Artists at the Venice Biennale” in Orientations, vol. 46/6, September 2015, Hong Kong, pp. 97-103.
  • “Thangka in the Library of Congress: Art for Independence and International Politics in Inner Asia in the early 20th century” in David Bade ed., Mongolian Studies: A Festschrift for Wayne Richter (Special Issue). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, vol. 35/2013, pp. 63-95.
  • “Other Home” the catalog of the Mongolia Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, Italy, 2015. (Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Contemporary Art Association).
  • “Women Artists of Mongolia” in Raiji Kuroda ed., Women Artists of Asia (Fukuoka: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan, 2012), pp. 208-215.
  • “Modernity and Tradition in Mongolian Contemporary Art” in Annu Wilenius ed., BareHouse: Pori-Rotterdam-Ulaanbaatar (Pori Art Museum, Finland, 2011), pp. 142-156.

Courses Taught

  • Art of the Past Two Decades
  • Identity and Politics in Contemporary Asian Art
  • Introduction to Arts of East Asia
  • Art and Culture of Mongolia
  • Interpreting Art and its History

Awards (selections)

  • IAHI Summer Academy Fellowship, IUPUI, 2020
  • American Council of Learned Societies/Robert Ho Foundation Collaborative Research Award, 2014-2016
  • John W. Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 2012-2013
  • Khyentse Foundation Fellowship, San Francisco, 2012-2014 

Curated Exhibitions (selections)

  • Invited Curator, Mongol Zurag: The Art of Everyday,” SAPAR Contemporary, NYC, 2019
  • Curator, “Reincarnation,” in Personal Structures, 56th Venice Biennale, 2015
  • Invited Curator, Mongolia Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2015
  • Invited Curator, Ulaanbaatar City Pavilion, 9th Shanghai Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China, 2012
  • Invited Nominator for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Sovereign Art Foundation, Hong Kong, 2010-present
  • Invited Nominator for Signature Art Prize, Singapore Art Museum, 2008-present