Lars Krutak
Encyclopedia
Dr. Lars Krutak is an American
anthropologist, photographer, and writer
known for his research about tattoo
and its cultural background. He produced and hosted the 10-part documentary series Tattoo Hunter on the Discovery Channel
which traveled the indigenous world to showcase vanishing art forms of body modification. Today, he works in the Repatriation Office of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
, to a traveling geologist and university professor who moved the family to Mexico City
in 1979 and then to a series of states including Louisiana
, Texas
, and eventually Colorado
where Lars grew up in the small mountain town atmosphere of Rye, Colorado
. Krutak attended the University of Colorado at Boulder
studying art history and anthropology and upon graduation (1993) he moved to San Francisco to work as an art gallery preparator for Paul Thiebaud, the son of American Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud
. In 1996, Krutak attended graduate school at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks where his thesis One Stitch at a Time: Ivalu and Sivuqaq Tattoo focused on the tattooing traditions of the St. Lawrence Island
Yupik people.
Krutak briefly attended Cambridge University as a Ph.D. student in 1998 but he returned stateside to work at the National Museum of the American Indian
(Smithsonian Institution
) where he worked as a Repatriation Research Specialist (between 1999–2002) facilitating the return of sacred and ceremonial objects and human remains to indigenous peoples throughout North America
and Mexico
. Between 1998 and 2003 he also worked for the OSCE as a Democratization Analyst and Applied Anthropologist in several countries of the former Yugoslavia
monitoring electoral reforms.
Since 2002, Krutak served as an Anthropological Consultant for three National Geographic Channel
productions and was a co-recipient of the 2003 American Book Award
in Literature for Akuzilleput Igaqullghet, Our Words Put to Paper Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Yupik Heritage and History. His Ph.D. studies at Arizona State University
(2005–2009) focused on the socioeconomic impacts of tourism on the Rarámuri people of Mexico’s Copper Canyon
region. Krutak appeared as a studio guest for the History Channel's Ancient Aliens
: Mysterious Rituals episode (2011) where he spoke about shamanism.
Lars Krutak is married to Heidi Rauch, the founder of Belabumbum, and has one daughter, Neena.
In August 2010, Krutak released a new coffee table book with Edition Reuss on the ancient art of Kalinga
tattooing in the Philippines
that is entitled Kalinga Tattoo: Ancient and Modern Expressions of the Tribal (ISBN 9783934020863). Co-authored with tattooed Kalinga elder Ms. Natividad Sugguiyao, this book is the first volume to focus on the indelible arts of these Cordilleran people.
In his continued effort to understand how tattoos and other forms of body modification "make" the people who wear them, Krutak has acquired many traditional tattoos including hand-tapped work from the Iban
of Borneo
, Kalinga of the Philippines, Mentawai of Indonesia
; hand-poked art from Theravada
Buddhist monks in Thailand
; and hand-pricked designs from the Kayabi of the Brazilian Amazon. He also wears approximately one thousand razor and knife-cut scars across his body received from other groups like the Kaningara of Papua New Guinea
, Bétamaribé of Benin
, the Hamar of Ethiopia
, and the Makonde of Mozambique
.
Krutak's tattoo research is regularly published internationally in magazines TätowierMagazin (Germany), Skin Deep (UK) and Skin & Ink Magazine (USA). In 2012-13, Krutak’s new work on Native American tattooing (i.e., Great Plains
and Eastern Woodlands regions) will be published by the University of Texas Press
in the book Drawing With Great Needles (Aaron Deter-Wolf and Carol Diaz-Granados, eds).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
anthropologist, photographer, and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
known for his research about tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
and its cultural background. He produced and hosted the 10-part documentary series Tattoo Hunter on the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
which traveled the indigenous world to showcase vanishing art forms of body modification. Today, he works in the Repatriation Office of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Early life and career
Krutak was born in Lincoln, NebraskaLincoln, Nebraska
The City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....
, to a traveling geologist and university professor who moved the family to Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
in 1979 and then to a series of states including Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, and eventually Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
where Lars grew up in the small mountain town atmosphere of Rye, Colorado
Rye, Colorado
Rye is a Statutory Town in Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. It is part of the Pueblo, Colorado Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 202 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Rye is located at ....
. Krutak attended the University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
studying art history and anthropology and upon graduation (1993) he moved to San Francisco to work as an art gallery preparator for Paul Thiebaud, the son of American Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate...
. In 1996, Krutak attended graduate school at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks where his thesis One Stitch at a Time: Ivalu and Sivuqaq Tattoo focused on the tattooing traditions of the St. Lawrence Island
St. Lawrence Island
St. Lawrence Island is located west of mainland Alaska in the Bering Sea, just south of the Bering Strait, at about 63°30' North 173°20' West. The village of Gambell is located on the northwest cape, from the Chukchi Peninsula in the Russian Far East. The island is part of Alaska, but closer to...
Yupik people.
Krutak briefly attended Cambridge University as a Ph.D. student in 1998 but he returned stateside to work at the National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
(Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
) where he worked as a Repatriation Research Specialist (between 1999–2002) facilitating the return of sacred and ceremonial objects and human remains to indigenous peoples throughout North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Between 1998 and 2003 he also worked for the OSCE as a Democratization Analyst and Applied Anthropologist in several countries of the former Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
monitoring electoral reforms.
Since 2002, Krutak served as an Anthropological Consultant for three National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
productions and was a co-recipient of the 2003 American Book Award
American Book Award
The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
in Literature for Akuzilleput Igaqullghet, Our Words Put to Paper Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Yupik Heritage and History. His Ph.D. studies at Arizona State University
Arizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
(2005–2009) focused on the socioeconomic impacts of tourism on the Rarámuri people of Mexico’s Copper Canyon
Copper Canyon
Copper Canyon is a group of canyons consisting of six distinct canyons in the Sierra Tarahumara in the southwestern part of the state of Chihuahua in Mexico...
region. Krutak appeared as a studio guest for the History Channel's Ancient Aliens
Ancient Aliens
Ancient Aliens is an American television series that premiered on April 20, 2010 on the History channel. Produced by Prometheus Entertainment, the program presents theories of ancient astronauts and proposes that historical texts, archaeology and legends contain evidence of past...
: Mysterious Rituals episode (2011) where he spoke about shamanism.
Lars Krutak is married to Heidi Rauch, the founder of Belabumbum, and has one daughter, Neena.
Work
Published in 2007, Krutak’s The Tattooing Arts of Tribal Women (ISBN 9781898948759) was the first book to focus on the tattooing artistry of indigenous women worldwide. It is based on one decade of field and archival research.In August 2010, Krutak released a new coffee table book with Edition Reuss on the ancient art of Kalinga
Kalinga
Kalinga is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Tabuk and borders Mountain Province to the south, Abra to the west, Isabela to the east, Cagayan to the northeast, and Apayao to the north...
tattooing in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
that is entitled Kalinga Tattoo: Ancient and Modern Expressions of the Tribal (ISBN 9783934020863). Co-authored with tattooed Kalinga elder Ms. Natividad Sugguiyao, this book is the first volume to focus on the indelible arts of these Cordilleran people.
In his continued effort to understand how tattoos and other forms of body modification "make" the people who wear them, Krutak has acquired many traditional tattoos including hand-tapped work from the Iban
Iban people
The Ibans are a branch of the Dayak peoples of Borneo. In Malaysia, most Ibans are located in Sarawak, a small portion in Sabah and some in west Malaysia. They were formerly known during the colonial period by the British as Sea Dayaks. Ibans were renowned for practising headhunting and...
of Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, Kalinga of the Philippines, Mentawai of Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
; hand-poked art from Theravada
Buddhism in Thailand
Buddhism in Thailand is largely of the Theravada school. Nearly 95% of Thailand's population is Buddhist of the Theravada school, though Buddhism in this country has become integrated with folk beliefs as well as Chinese religions from the large Thai-Chinese population.Buddhist temples in Thailand...
Buddhist monks in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
; and hand-pricked designs from the Kayabi of the Brazilian Amazon. He also wears approximately one thousand razor and knife-cut scars across his body received from other groups like the Kaningara of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
, Bétamaribé of Benin
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
, the Hamar of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, and the Makonde of Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
.
Krutak's tattoo research is regularly published internationally in magazines TätowierMagazin (Germany), Skin Deep (UK) and Skin & Ink Magazine (USA). In 2012-13, Krutak’s new work on Native American tattooing (i.e., Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
and Eastern Woodlands regions) will be published by the University of Texas Press
University of Texas Press
The University of Texas Press is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texana, anthropology, U.S...
in the book Drawing With Great Needles (Aaron Deter-Wolf and Carol Diaz-Granados, eds).