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Five interesting facts about Richard Serra's East-West
Richard Serra's permanent installation in Zekreet, East-West/West-East, has become a famous landmark in Qatar.
Located 60 km outside Doha in Brouq Nature Reserve, the installation comprises four towering steel sculptures in the middle of the dessert.
Here are five interesting facts about Serra's installation.
Perfect Alignment
The four steel plates are perfectly aligned. To ensure this, Serra examined the topography of the land and beautifully enhanced the massive open space in the heart of the desert. The result is spectacular and contemporary, yet timeless.
10 times a human's height
The installation at 49 feet or around 15 metres are massive and approximately ten times the height of an average human.
Two of the four plates rise 14.7 metres above the ground and the others 16.7 metres, which, adjusted for the topography, means that they are all level with each other, and with the gypsum plateaus either side.
Hot enough to cook
The temperature in summer is so hot, that the plates can absorb enough heat to bake cookies, or even cook scrambled eggs. They are far too hot to touch, although being vertical, they aren't the best choices to cook anything!
All the way from Germany
The steel plates were rolled in Germany and offloaded, transported and craned into the middle of the desert in Zekreet. That sounds like some mad logistics there!
Similar work before
Besides the 7 which was unveiled in 2011, he had a previous sculpture called Promenade, which comprised of five enormous slabs, each 56 feet high and 13 feet wide.
They are precisely placed and angled, leaning 20 inches in or away from their axis, creating shifting lines of sight. As the sun moves over the course of the day, casting different latticed shadows from the building, the plates appear at times to bend toward or away from the viewer.
Photo by Santiago Sanz Romero
a small message to Mr. Richard Serra - when u visit next time to Qatar - think of installing a big water cooler or Water Well in such isolated place so that not only humans but the birds and animals can be benefitted too....thank you ! :)
The way the have put that steel biscuits...same way if they can make an easy access like a road so that the visitors can reach the location and view that hot plate to fry some eggs on it .....:)
Rizks: The whole point of putting it in the nature reserve is that people would visit and feel themselves at one with nature by getting out of the city.
Next weekend, let's put the sand tyres on your Tuk-Tuk , fill the flask with hot Karak and drive out there
It is installed in such an isolated place, I don't think we can even find sparrows in tat location flying....:)
I bet 95.99% have not even seen tat pole.....:(
When you have nothing to show even a big rock becomes a "landmark"!
so towering steel structures in a desert are also counted as landmarks...interesting...
Brit: Wow! The bench must have been 4 metres long! But your effort reflected your deep and sincere love for her O)-
acchabaccha: I remember sitting on a park bench with my Cuban Shotputter and trying to carve her full name in the wood - Isidora Liliana Florentina Amelia Eloisa Valentina Esperanza Marisela Agustina Camila Rosalina Paloma Celestina Octavia Natalia Gonzales...
We were there for two days :O(
They scratch their names on the steel plates to make them immortal. I carved my girl friend's name within a cupid's heart on the bark of a tree during school days, and it still exists!
We are proud of this art - joys
As they say, "Art is subjective"
You forgot to say that it's very hard to get there. The question is: why are they hiding it in an almost inaccessible remote area? And the other question is: why do some people damage the piece of art by scratching their names into the steel plates? It seems that neither the authorities nor the visitors have any respect for it. Just my humble observation.