’70-: İPEK DUBEN
Galerist is pleased to present İpek Duben's solo exhibition titled ’70-, between the dates November 22, 2025 and January 3, 2026. The exhibition centers on Duben’s early drawings, which began in the 1970s, and extend beyond that decade. These works reveal the first traces of the layered and spatial sensibility that would later define her artistic practice. Curated by Farah Aksoy and Amira Arzık, the exhibition sheds light on the formal foundations of Duben’s painterly language.
In the late 1960s, İpek Duben decided not to complete her PhD in political science to pursue art, a decision that marked not only a change of field but also a transformation in her way of thinking. The education she received at the New York Studio School between 1972 and 1976 became a lasting turning point in her practice. During this intense period of drawing, where figurative exercises intertwined with abstract gestures, Duben began to approach drawing not as a tool of representation but as a bodily form of thought and feeling.
Upon returning to Istanbul, she entered a quiet yet determined period of production, positioned outside academic arts circles but still in dialogue with them. During this time, she moved intuitively between different materials, laying the groundwork for the multifaceted practice that would take shape in the years to come.
This exhibition turns its gaze not to Duben’s paintings, but to the different stages of the creative processes. The drawings in the 1970s reveal the foundations of her visual thinking, rather than serving as preparatory studies. Defining herself as “an artist working with space,” Duben explores the transitions between line and color, figure and surface, form and space. Her sensitivity to surface later evolves into a layered exploration of the picture plane in her 1990s series, and into a bodily tension in the canvas works she created in the 2010s.
’70- traces the dialogue between the artist’s early explorations and her later multilayered works. It invites the viewer to approach the moment of discovery where thought meets the movement of the hand.
The exhibition will be on view until January 3, 2026, between Tuesday and Saturday, from 11:00 to 19:00.
About İpek Duben
Duben's educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Agnes Scott College (1963) and a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Chicago (1965). She pursued doctoral studies in the same field, completing all requirements except the dissertation (ABD) by 1971. Transitioning to the arts, she studied drawing and anatomy with Robert Beverley Hale at the Art Students League in New York and furthered her education at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture between 1972 and 1976. She earned a PhD in Art History from Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul in 1984.
Duben has contributed significantly as a writer, critic, and educator. She has published critical texts on art history and contemporary Turkish art,including Türk Resmi ve Eleştirisi: 1880–1950 (2007) and the edited volumes Seksenlerde Türkiye’de Çağdaş Sanat: Yeni Açılımlar (2008) and Çağdaş Düşünce ve Sanat (1991). Her writings, collected in İpek Duben Yazı ve Söyleşileri 1978–2010 (SALT, 2016), offer insight into Turkey’s evolving art landscape.
Duben has held numerous solo exhibitions, notably her career retrospective The Skin, Body and I at SALT Beyoğlu in Istanbul (2021–22). Other major solo shows include Angels and Clowns (Pi Artworks, Istanbul, 2020), In via incognita (Pi Artworks, London, 2018), THEY/ONLAR (SALT Galata, 2015; Fabrica, Brighton and Brighton Festival, 2017), 2012 (Gallery Zilberman, İstanbul, 2012), Extracted Objects (Gallery Zilberman, İstanbul, 2011) and İPEK DUBEN: A selection 1994-2009, (Aksanat, 2009-2010).
Her work has been featured in international group exhibitions such as the 13th and the 18th Istanbul Biennial (2013, 2025), Artists Making Books: Poetry to Politics (The British Museum, London, 2022-2023), Multi Perspective: In a Multiple Perspective (Yarat Art Center, Baku, 2022-23), Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa (The British Museum, London, 2021), Social Works (Frieze London, London, 2018), 4th Mardin Biennial (Mardin, 2018), Poetry and Exile (British Museum, London, 2014), Dream and Reality (Istanbul Modern, 2011), A Dream… But Not Yours (The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, 2010), New Works, New Horizons (Istanbul Modern, 2009), Substance and Light: Ten Sculptors Use Cameras (Munson-Williams Proctor Art Institute, Utica, 2006),1st and 4th International Biennale for the Artist's Book (Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 2004, 2010).
Her works are included in the collections of İstanbul Modern; The British Museum; Arter, İstanbul; Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s Artist Books Collection, Egypt; Museum voor Volkenkunde Rotterdam; Wien Museum (in Karamustafa Import-Export Project); King St. Stephen Museum, Deak Collection, Székesfehérar, Hungary; Center for Book Arts-New York; Moscow Artist’s Book Archive; Zorlu Collection, as well as private collections across the United States, Turkey, Japan, France, and the United Kingdom.
Duben has taught and lectured at various institutions, including Sabancı University, Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul Technical University, Boğaziçi University, and Roosevelt University in Chicago. She lived and worked in New York from 1991 to 2001 and currently resides in Istanbul, where she continues her artistic and scholarly endeavours.