Long, bumpy 4WD ride to Qatar's acclaimed desert art

DOHA - Deep in the Qatari desert, security guards have a lonely time keeping 24-hour watch over one of the world's most isolated artworks, created by renowned US sculptor Richard Serra.

"On a busy day we can get 100 people," said one guard monitoring the four vertical steel plates -- each more than 14 metres high -- that make up Serra's "East-West/West-East".

But when temperatures soar above 50 degrees Celsius in the Brouq nature reserve, visitors are rare.

Even Qatar's art chiefs say that getting to the work -- which is spread over more than a kilometre -- is part of the challenge of appreciating Serra's installation, one of the Gulf state's big-ticket art purchases in 2014.

But few advertisements mention "East-West/West-East", located about 70 kilometres from Doha.

A four-wheel drive is needed to reach the artfully rusted steel plates, and barely a road sign points the way. 

Firas al-Obisi, a Syrian working as a guide in Qatar since 2006, said his car became stuck when a sudden rainstorm turned the roads to mud as he took a Chinese tourist to the site.

"Every time I tried to get out, it just became worse. The sand was like glue," he said.

It took four hours to pull his truck out, after one of the three vehicles assisting him also became stuck.

"The artwork starts through the journey," said Abdulrahman al-Ishaq, director of public art at Qatar Museums, likening it to "a pilgrimage".

"You have to really determine that on that day you are going to go to Richard Serra," he said. "And then when you get off the road and into the desert, you have to find it."

Round-the-clock watch over "East-West/West-East", with guards and cameras, started after vandals struck several times in 2020 and 2021.

Qatar vaunts itself as one of the most crime-free places on Earth, and authorities made at least six arrests.