Qatar Is Becoming The New Frontier Of... Modern Art
Relics, the biggest ever show of work by Damien Hirst was recently unveiled in the tiny, energy-rich state of Qatar, in the Persian Gulf. As well as the provocative artist’s spot and spin paintings and his signature medicine cabinets, the show boasted the biggest pickled shark he has ever made, weighing in at a gargantuan 76 tons, and his diamond-encrusted skull, a piece that he once boasted was the most expensive artwork ever made by a living artist. The exhibition was staged in Qatar’s capital Doha, in the Al Riwaq exhibition space, a building which had been covered with coloured dots for the occasion. But that is not all: outside an as-yet-unfinished medical centre, Hirst had placed The Miraculous Journey, a series of 14 massive bronze sculptures charting a foetus from conception to birth. The project cost a reported $20m. The sculptures were seen as highly controversial in Qatar, where shop mannequins still sometimes don’t have heads, because of the Muslim unease with anything fi...
