Salt Research
İpek Duben Archive

Dub474 İpek Duben Centre Street’teki atölyesinde (New York, ABD), 2001 
Salt Araştırma, İpek Duben Arşivi
İpek Duben in her studio on Centre Street (New York, USA), 2001
Salt Research, İpek Duben Archive
İpek Duben’s archive is digitized and cataloged through a collaborative process with the artist and can now be accessed online. Initiated after The Skin, Body, and I, the most comprehensive exhibition of İpek Duben held in 2021-2022, the archival work is launched in parallel to a publication with the same title.

Recently added to Salt Research’s artist archives, the collection offers insight into Duben’s practice from the 1980s to the present, exploring gender, male violence, displacement, migration, and excessive consumption. The archive brings together visual and textual sources on the artist’s production in Turkey and the USA, where she has lived for extended periods, and her exhibitions in Turkey and abroad.

About İpek Duben
Duben graduated from Arnavutköy American College for Girls (Robert College) and received her BA in Political Science from Agnes Scott College in 1963. After completing her MA in the same field at the University of Chicago in 1965, she abandoned her doctoral studies in 1969 to concentrate on art. She studied drawing, painting, and sculpture at the New York Studio School between 1972–1976 and completed her PhD in art history at Mimar Sinan University (Istanbul) in 1984. Duben has also made significant contributions to art in Turkey with her texts and books. She was involved in institutions such as the Painting and Sculpture Museums Association and the International Association of Art (UPSD). She taught at Istanbul Technical University, Yıldız Technical University, Boğaziçi University, and Istanbul Bilgi University.

Duben’s publications include İpek Duben: Yazı ve Söyleşileri 1978–2010 [İpek Duben: Writings and Interviews 1978–2010], Türk Resmi ve Eleştirisi: 1880–1950 [Turkish Painting and Its Criticism: 1880–1950], and the co-edited volumes Seksenlerde Türkiye’de Çağdaş Sanat: Yeni Açılımlar [Contemporary Art in Turkey in the Eighties: New Directions], and Çağdaş Düşünce ve Sanat [Contemporary Thought and Art].

Selected solo exhibitions include The Skin, Body, and I (Salt Beyoğlu, Istanbul, 2021-2022), Angels and Clowns (Pi Artworks, Istanbul, 2020), in via incognito (Pi Artworks, London, 2018), They (Salt Galata, Istanbul, 2015 and Fabrica, Brighton, 2017), and LoveGame (Merdiven Art Space, Istanbul, 2017). She has also exhibited at the Social Work (Frieze Art Fair, London, 2018), 4th International Mardin Biennial (Mardin, 2018), Poetry and Exile (British Museum, London, 2014), 13th Istanbul Biennial (Istanbul, 2013), Dream and Reality (İstanbul Modern, 2011), and A Dream… But Not Yours (The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, 2010).

Her works are included in the collections of the British Museum (London), Wien Museum (Vienna), Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Alexandria), King St. Stephen Museum (Székesfehérvár), Museum Volkenkunde (Rotterdam), Istanbul Modern (Istanbul), Arter (Istanbul), Zorlu Foundation (Istanbul), and the Center for Book Arts (New York).

Salt Research Art Archive
The archival collections at Salt Research encompass over 2,000,000 unique digitized resources on “Art,” “Architecture and Design,” and “City, Society, and Economy.” The Art Archive focuses on the history of art in Turkey after 1950 and incorporates artist archives, including Ahmet Öktem, Altan Gürman (in collaboration with Arter), Cengiz Çekil, Gülsün Karamustafa, Gürel Yontan, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Moni Salim Özgilik, Mustafa Altıntaş, Kutluğ Ataman, Nur Koçak, Özer Kabaş, Sabiha Rüştü Bozcalı, Serhat Kiraz, Tomur Atagök, and Yusuf Taktak. All collections are accessible online via archives.saltresearch.org.
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