Carbon 12 Gallery; A Gallery with a Trans-regional Approach

10 July 2023
Carbon 12 Gallery was established in 2008 and since 2009, it has been located in Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, where many of the most important galleries in the MENA region are located. Kourosh Nouri and Nadine Knotzer, the founders and managers of Carbon 12 Gallery were one of the first gallerists in the Middle East that adopted a trans-regional approach and avoided fleeting and market-friendly trends by attracting Iranian and international artists. In this essay, Sevana Boghossian introduces this gallery and its artists.

Alserkal Avenue in AlQuoz region of Dubai is home to the best galleries in the MENA region; Carbon 12 Gallery, Ayam Gallery, Green Art Gallery and Leila Heller Gallery are all located in this avenue. Kourosh Nouri, the Iranian founder and manager of Carbon 12 Gallery, describes the reason behind the success and progress of this area, its proper location, professionalism and internationalism.

Carbon 12 Gallery
Carbon 12 Gallery

The name, Carbon 12, comes from its owner's interest in getting to the roots of things and nature, like charcoal, one of the most basic instruments for drawing that is created from carbon; Carbon 12 is one of the 15 isotopes of carbon, one of the most widespread and stable elements in nature. Carbon 12 Gallery is a permanent member of NADA, or in other words, New Art Dealers Alliance; This gallery started its activity in Dubai in November 2008 and was the first art space in the region that offered a comprehensive and international program of prominent artists; More precisely, the founders and managers of Carbon 12, Nouri and his wife Nadine Knotzer, have a trans-regional vision and have adopted a curatorial and non-regional approach with a strategic plan; The identity of this gallery lies in distancing itself from the trends of the regional market and artistic tendencies and methods.

 Kourosh Nouri & Nadine Knotzer, co-founders of Carbon 12 gallery
 Kourosh Nouri & Nadine Knotzer, co-founders of Carbon 12 gallery

The entry of the owner of the gallery, Nouri, into the world of art is interesting. Nouri completed his studies in MBA and has lived most of his life in Vienna. Since 1995-96, he became interested in art through his trips to Iran and familiarization with Iranian artistic spaces and groups, and has been collecting works ever since. By entering the field of collecting and before opening his own gallery in Dubai, he decides to change careers due to personal reasons and professional dissatisfaction, he proposes to his partner, Knotzer, to open a gallery. Nouri and Knotzer searched in the art scene of Dubai for a year, and after consecutive trips, they chose the place and the artists they wanted. From Nouri's viewpoint, the two-way relationship between the gallery owner and the artist is important, and the work of the gallery owner is thereby distinguished from the art dealer. Nouri separates the work of commercial galleries from that of the dealers through the exhibition-making process and relationships it builds with artists.

Carbon 12 artists, are from both emerging and established groups, currently consist of 12 people: Sarah Al Mehairi, Olaf Breuning, Bernhard Buhmann, Andre Butzer, Gil Heitor Cortesao, Monika Grabuschnigg, Philip Meuller, Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, Michael Sailstorfer and Amba Sayal-Bennett. Two Iranian artists are also seen among them: Anahita Razmi and Amir Khojasteh. This gallery organizes about 6 to 8 exhibitions a year and besides that, it holds artistic and academic meetings and discussions. The artists of this gallery exhibit their solo shows every two and a half years and also participate in group exhibitions and various art fairs that carbon 12 takes part in throughout the year.

 Philip Mueller's boot, Armory Show, New York, 2020. Represented by Carbon 12 Gallery12
Philip Mueller's boot, Armory Show, New York, 2020.
Represented by Carbon 12 Gallery

Through ongoing exhibitions and curated group works, notably Carbon 12's participation in well-known art fairs such as New York's Armory Show, the gallery's artists have found their way into important art collections. 

Author(s)

Sevana Boghossian
Related Artists

Related Articles

When everyone was buying Arabshahi and Zendehroudi, I bought Rokni Haerizadeh
Kourosh Nouri, the founding director of Carbon 12 Gallery, was talking with Hossein Mohseni at the same time as Art Fair Dubai 2023. In this conversation, Nouri talks about the beginning of his career in the field of gallery ownership and the establishment of Carbon 12 Gallery together with Nadine Knotzer. He also answers questions about how to choose and collaborate with artists an...
11 July 2023

Collecting Art in Contemporary Iran; From Artists to Archivists
Art collecting in contemporary Iran is more of a patronage that even leads to archival activities. But is it possible to classify Iranian art collectors and talk about their motivations? In this short essay, Savana Boghossian has tried to propose a framework for art collecting in Iran, considering the limited information at hand.
29 July 2023

Book preview; Art Marketing Strategy by Mehdi Khademi & Shahin Parikhani
Iran's publishing market is facing a shortage of authored books in the field of art economics, but you can still find titles written for the audience of this field. The book "Art Marketing Strategy" written by Dr. Mehdi Khademi and Shahin Parikhani is one of these works. This book seeks to provide a suitable framework for managers of art organizations and art collections to formulat...
30 June 2023
Insert Comment

* Indicates required field