Richard Serra, East-West/West-East, 2014 – Qatar (December, 2022)
Background
Four giant steel plates over 46 feet tall in a one kilometer line creating an east / west corridor in the Brouq Nature Reserve in Qatar. They are different heights to make up for their different terrain levels so they all top out at the same plane. Each plate weighs around 80 tons each.
Richard Serra was commissioned by Sheikha al-Mayassa al-Thani of Qatar to build it. The Sheikha has spent billions acquiring and building a large and impressive cultural collection of art; as part of Qatar’s broader soft power strategy prestige rivalry with the other gulf nations.
Travel
We rented a car from Hamad Airport (DOH), the main airport in Doha, for the day for about $65. Then drove west along the Dukhan Highway, it is about an hour and a half drive (depending on the offroading conditions once you near the installation). The highway is brand new, with basically zero traffic and is a smooth ride. There’s no real need for an AWD vehicle, but an SUV with some clearance is definitely helpful when you offroad for about 4 - 5 km on a pretty flat dirt / sand worn path. There are no real hours of operations, and it’s free to visit.
Full drive from Doha
Green highlighted area is where the installation sits. Red arrow represents our route, purple arrow is an alternative route
We approached from the west (the red arrow) out of Zekreet. Once you leave the little enclave you are on an obvious dirt road, it’s an easy, albeit dusty drive. If you leave your windows open, you will have a fine layer of sand on everything in the car. We returned through this same path, because it was after dark and I felt more comfortable retracing our path versus taking the purple arrow route on the east side. GPS will not be able to give you a good route offroading, but as long as you keep a pin on the destination, you will be able to follow the worn paths and get to and fro without a problem. There are only a couple of true ditches that could be a problem if you’re not paying attention.
View from the unofficial parking area
As far as we could tell, there is very little around the area. There are a handful of restaurants in the towns of Dukhan and Bir Zekrit, and a few rather unremarkable beaches on the Broog peninsula (Zekreet). I would suggest bringing food and drinks with you from Doha. We swung by a McDonalds in Dukhan for a quick bite. I kid you not, a man on a scooter drove through a glass door of the building while we were inside waiting for our food. He was alright, but it was very startling.
We returned the car to Doha where I promptly permanently bruised my shin walking into a end table in the airport, then we took a Careem (cheap Uber / Lyft alternative that I do not recommend, use the actual taxi cabs if you can, they’re better, and not much more expensive) to Jiwan at the National Museum of Qatar for dinner. This was one of the better meals we had in the country. It has a beautiful terrace to eat on, the architeture of the building is very cool (designed after a desert rose), and the food was terrific.
The National Museum of Qatar, you eat on a terrace of one of those protruding discs
There is also an hour and a half away, near the northern coast of Qatar, another land art piece in the desert called Shadows Travelling on the Sea of the Day by Olafur Eliasson. We did not have enough time to make it there (it was the day after the World Cup Final, so we got a late start to the day and Serra’s piece was our priority).
Experience
We visited on December 19th, 2022. The weather was quite nice, sky was clear, a light jacket was useful after the sun set. It’s free to visit, and there is an intermittent guard / ranger who drives through to check on it. They spoke little English, mostly got that we shouldn’t graffiti or deface the art in any way. Basic rules. But they left us alone in the dark. We arrived an hour or two before sunset and stayed for an hour or two past sunset. That golden hour was beautiful, and the offroad return drive in the dark was easy and very low risk.
While we were there for 3 - 4 hours, about five other personal cars arrived and checked it out for a few minutes before leaving. Seemed like an odd length since it takes awhile to get there, but people seemed to be satisfied with just glancing at it. There was a film production of about 25 people filming a promotional ad for Qatar featuring an interpretative modern dancer. You can see them in the background of this timelapse we took.
We enjoyed watching their featured dancer, move along the ridge and their silhouette across the waning desert sun.
Dancer on the ridge of the southern plateau
We (and other visitors) ruined a few of their shots as you can drive wherever you want out in the middle of the desert. You can drive straight up to the plates, but there is an unmarked area just south of the southern plateau that is vaguely a park lot. This keeps your vehicle out of sight, and everyone can enjoy the view without cars interfering.
The green are the four plates; the blue circle just to the south is the unofficial suggested parking area
The installation fits in a valley between two plateaus, you can pretty easily climb up on either, and from above you get a nice vantage point of the structures. Definitely go at sunset. You arrive safely in broad daylight, and you slowly experience the changing light, and then you get to have some star gazing before heading back to the city.
Summary
This was (outside the World Cup matches, shoutout to Argentina v. Netherlands, France v. Argentina, and Japan v. Germany) without a doubt the coolest part of our trip to Qatar. There’s not a lot to do in the country, so if you have the time, go for it. It’s a powerful piece of land art, playing with the landscape with larger than life materials. A strong recommendation to make it a point to go see this spectacular installation.
Sources
No Author, "Richard Serra: East-West/West-East," Qatar Museums, Accessed April 15th, 2023, https://qm.org.qa/en/visit/public-art/richard-serra-east-west-west-east/.
No Author, "Serra in the Desert," Artforum, Accessed April 15th, 2023, https://www.artforum.com/features/serra-in-the-desert-221158/.
No Author, "Richard Serra in the Qatari Desert," Numéro Magazine, Accessed April 15th, 2023, https://www.numero.com/en/art/richard-serra-qatar-deserts-east-west-monument-steel-sculpture-aitor-ortiz-abstract-art-sculpture.
Nicolas Niarchos, "Richard Serra in the Qatari Desert," The New Yorker, Accessed April 15th, 2023, April 16th, 2014https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/richard-serra-in-the-qatari-desert.
No Author, "East-West/West-East," Atlas Obscura, Accessed April 15th, 2023, https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/east-west-west-east.
No Author, "Richard Serra, Sculptor of Monumental Steel Works, Dies at 84," The New York Times, March 26, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/arts/richard-serra-dead.html.