DOHA, Qatar — For weeks, 14 giant balloons had been
mysteriously parked in front of the Sidra Medical and Research Center, a
hulking steel, glass and white ceramic building devoted to women’s and
children’s health that is to open on the outskirts of this city in 2015.
The unveiling of “The Miraculous Journey,” by Damien Hirst,
a series of sculptures that culminates in one of a 46-foot baby, on Monday in
Doha, Qatar. More Photos »
At 7 on Monday evening, to the amplified sound of a beating
heart, members of Qatar’s royal family, government officials and local artists
watched as each balloon, bathed in purple light, opened like a giant flower to
reveal an unusually provocative public artwork. Called “The Miraculous
Journey,” it consists of 14 monumental bronze sculptures, by the British artist
Damien Hirst, chronicling the gestation of a fetus inside a uterus, from
conception to birth, ending with a statue of a 46-foot-tall anatomically
correct baby boy.
Even for a Persian Gulf country that is aggressively buying
its way into modernity, this installation takes official acceptance of Western
art to a new level. Local women still adhere to centuries-old Islamic
traditions, wearing the abaya, a long cloak, and niquab, or face covering;
images of women are routinely censored in books and magazines. Even the
representation of the human form is unusual.
To commission such an audacious work of art is considered a
particularly bold move for Sheikha al Mayassa Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, 30,
chairwoman of the Qatar Museums Authority and a sister to the new emir of this
oil- and gas-rich state. The sculptures are reported to have cost $20 million.
“To have something like this is less daring than having a
lot of nudity,” said the sheikha, interviewed on Monday morning in her office
at the Museum of Islamic Art, a modern, sun-filled space with sweeping views of
the gulf. “There is a verse in the Koran about the miracle of birth,” she said.
“It is not against our culture or our religion.”
Rather, she sees the sculptures as an extension of her
mission to create a platform for contemporary artists from around the world,
transforming this city of gleaming skyscrapers and sandy beaches into a center
for arts and culture. Whether the public likes it or not, she believes, “it’s
important to have an ongoing conversation.”
The museums authority has also organized a giant
retrospective of Mr. Hirst’s work, “Relics,” which opens on Thursday.
Known as one of the most powerful forces in the
international art world today, with exceptional buying power and forward
thinking, Sheikha al Mayassa is a vocal advocate of contemporary art and arts
education. She has been criticized by some as brazen or for embracing only
celebrated artists, yet is praised by others for her commitment to the art of
the new.
“She’s brave to introduce new visuals and new thoughts,
especially in Doha, which is more conservative than other Middle Eastern
cities,” said Nada Shabout, a professor of art history at the University of
North Texas who works with the Arab Museum of Modern Art here. “Most of the
Arab world has not seen public nudity. Sex is not taboo here, it’s just a very
private affair. I have no idea how the public will react to these sculptures.”
Generally, the public does not take to the streets to voice
disapproval and is considered unlikely to deface any public artwork. Instead,
residents seize on social media platforms, like Twitter or blogs. After a
16-foot-tall bronze sculpture depicting one soccer player head-butting another
was installed last week on the Corniche, a popular waterfront promenade here,
some residents called online for its removal on the grounds that the sculpture,
by the Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed, offended religious sensibilities. The
sheikha shrugs off the criticism, saying that contemporary art is vital to the
city’s landscape.
Purposely provocative, Mr. Hirst, 48, was long controversial
in his own country, known for startling works that have included rotting cows
positioned to simulate copulation; sharks and sheep preserved in formaldehyde;
maggots attacking a cow’s head; and medicine cabinets full of hundreds of
different kinds of drugs. Yet, in recent years, exposure to his work has been
oversaturated in the United States and Europe.
He is fascinating to many, nonetheless, in a city like Doha.
Sheikha al Mayassa recalled visiting Mr. Hirst’s studio in Gloucestershire,
England, around 2009 and asking him to consider creating an outdoor sculpture.
Mr. Hirst showed her some drawings of prenatal and natal
development he had made in 2005, from sperm to fetus to newborn. “I had always
envisioned them to be monumental sculptures, and the sheikha had the idea of
putting them in front of a woman’s hospital,” he said. (The installation’s full
title is “The Miraculous Journey (2005 to 2013).”
It was a commission fraught with secrecy. “The first meeting
I had with the architects, I was not allowed to tell them what the sculptures
were because they wanted it to be a surprise,” he recalled. Most of the work,
which took three years, was carried out in his studio in England.
There is nothing secret about them now: he positioned the
sculptures so they can be seen both from the motorway and the desert. Together
they weigh a total of 216 tons.
Wearing scruffy blue jeans and a white T-shirt, Mr. Hirst
was watching workers put the finishing touches on his retrospective at Al
Riwaq, a nondescript building — now covered in his signature dots — that is
next to the Museum of Islamic Art, which was designed by I. M. Pei and opened
in 2008.
Mr. Hirst said he became fascinated with childbirth after
having children of his own. “Everyone talks about our life’s journey, but we
have a whole journey before you’re born,” he explained.
Both Ms. Shabout and Zainab Bahrani, a professor of Near
Eastern art and archaeology at Columbia University, pointed out that depictions
of naked women bathing have been common throughout the history of Islamic art —
for example, in ancient illuminated manuscripts. Such images are not, however,
readily available to the population here.
“People are not aware here that it has a long tradition,”
Ms. Shabout said.
Ms. Bahrani said: “I am sympathetic to the fact that art
makes us feel uncomfortable, can challenge. On the other hand, you don’t want
to shock. So it’s a fine line.”
But to Sheikha al Mayassa, it is one more step in the
process of introducing art to Doha. Already she is planning two more museums
here: the National Museum of Qatar, designed by Jean Nouvel, and the
Orientalist Museum, designed by the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron.
Although the sheikha declined to confirm or deny the
reported cost of Mr. Hirst’s sculptures, she said the outlay was “not a crazy
number.”
“For us, it’s about the bigger picture,” she said. With an
impish grin, she added: “Although he denies it, I think the baby is really
Damien. It looks like him.”
When winds kicked up the other day, the balloon shrouding
the baby boy accidentally blew off. Mr. Hirst, who was in London at the time,
received an e-mail from Sheikha al Mayassa that read:
“Your baby appears to want to come early.”
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