Tayeba Begum Lipi (b. 1969, Gaibandha, Bangladesh) creates paintings, prints, videos and installations articulating themes of female marginality and the female body. Her sculptural works re-creating everyday objects including beds, bathtubs, strollers, wheelchairs, dressing tables and women’s undergarments use unexpected materials, such as safety pins and razor blades. This purposeful and provocative choice of materials speaks to the violence facing women in Bangladesh, as well as referencing tools used in childbirth in the more underdeveloped parts of the country.
Lipi completed a Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka in 1993. She was awarded a Grand Prize at the 11th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh in 2003 and was the commissioner for the Pavilion of Bangladesh at the 54th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia in 2011. In 2012, she was one of the curators for the Kathmandu International Art Festival. She also participated in the 14th Jakarta Biennale and the Colombo Art Biennale in Sri Lanka in 2011 and the Dhaka Art Summit in 2012. In 2000 Lipi was an artist-in-residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.
Lipi’s work has been exhibited across the globe at venues such as Shanghai Modern Art Museum, China; the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama; the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, Michigan; Museum Arnhem, Netherlands; and the Taiwan National Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan. In 2015, her work featured prominently in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Her work is on view in Being and Belonging: Contemporary Women Artists from the Islamic World and Beyond at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto through November 19, 2023 .
Lipi is represented in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts; Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama; LO-FTF Foundation, Denmark; Sydney; Bengal Foundation, Dhaka; the National Art Gallery of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Segunbagicha; Samdani Art Foundation, Bangladesh; Devi Art Foundation, Gurugram, Haryana; Floodlight Foundation, New Delhi; JSW Foundation and the Harmony Art Foundation/Reliance Group, Mumbai, India.
In 2002 Lipi co-founded the Britto Arts Trust, Bangladesh’s first artist-run alternative arts platform dedicated to organizing exhibitions, encouraging intercultural dialogue and providing residencies for local artists. Work by members of Britto Arts Trust was featured in Documenta 15 in 2022.
Tayeba Begum Lipi lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
