Richard Serra, 7
For the last couple of years, art life in the small Arabian country of Qatar has been defined by intensive museum-building, presence of famous artists and commissioning of expensive art work. The famous American artist Richard Serra's (1939) debut in the Middle East is yet another proof of the consistency of the process. The twenty-four-metre steel sculpture towering above the Qatari capital of Doha, the tallest object ever created by Serra, has been deservedly described as 'the giant of contemporary art'. The sculpture is set in the new MIA par, opposite the building of the Museum of Islamic Art designed by the famous architect I.M. Pei.
According to the artist, the Quran contains countless references to the number 7 which was also central to a significant discovery by the 10th-century Persian mathematician and astronomer Abu Sahl al-Quh. The DohaNews Newspaper quotes Serra to the effect that 'Archimedes had introduced the concept of a regular heptagon into geometry but it had remained unexplored for centuries. It was Abu Sahl who proved that a regular heptagon could be constructed into a form.'
One of Serra's trademark features plays an important part in the image of the Doha giant: rust is present in practically all of the American artist's works. The oxidation process should be complete in eight years' time, transforming the colour of rust from orange to a much darker shade.
MIA Park
www.mia.org.qa
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