Behrang Karimi’s father was an artist, and Karimi grew up watching him work in his studio. Although he may have been fascinated by this environment, art was also a site of conflict, shaped by his family’s experience as political immigrants from Iran living in Germany. “He already had his life, and everything was working quite good. Suddenly everything collapses in a way.”
As the child of 1968 revolutionaries, Karimi was raised with the belief that flags and national identities were insignificant. However, lived reality proved more complex, and he increasingly turned to art as a means of navigating this dissonance. “It became clear, that art was the only island, where you didn’t need any flags.”
Accordingly, the settings of Karimi’s paintings are what he describes as “nature places”: “Places where people are disconnected from their heritage and they are vulnerable (…) That’s why I became an artist, so it stands for a more universal place.”
Within Karimi’s creative process, nature occupies a central role. “it’s like Karlheinz Stockhausen would talk about, the sound of the birds being the most complete music (…) Nature is the premise of creation and what we do, is trying to get a few tiny steps closer to that huge amount of beauty.”
Behrang Karimi (b. 1980, Shiraz, Iran) graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2015. He has recently held solo exhibitions at Ermes Ermes, Rome (2024); Melas Martinos, Athens (2023); and Maureen Paley, London (2023). Karimi lives and works in Cologne.
Behrang Karimi was interviewed by Astrid Agnes Hald in July 2025 in connection to his solo exhibition ‘NOCTURNES’ at Gallery Avlskarl in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard
Edited by: Astrid Agnes Hald
Produced by: Astrid Agnes Hald
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026
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